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EXCLUSIVE: A moderate House Democrat representing a district that President Donald Trump won in 2024 is warning fellow elected officials, both within his party and the GOP, from pandering to the extremes of their base.
“It’s a road to ruin, because too many extremists, too many elected officials, are busy pandering to their base instead of listening to the general public and instead of trying to find common ground,” Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., told Fox News Digital.
Suozzi said people on the far-left and far-right make up a relatively small — but active — section of both sides. He suggested that it’s a group that’s had an outsized influence in Congress as well.
“We have not seen much compromise these days. And everything has been, you know, one party or the other trying to do a my-way-or-the-highway partisan effort,” he said. “I’m sure both sides are inspired by good intention, but it’s not long-lasting, and it’s not going to help move our country forward.”
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Suozzi’s district encompasses part of the New York City suburbs of Long Island and includes part of the Big Apple itself as well.
But his district is not as progressive as other parts of New York that have shown support for socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani — whose candidacy Suozzi spoke out against on multiple occasions.
Suozzi did not answer directly when asked if Mamdani’s leadership in the city will affect him in the coming 2026 midterms, but he pointed out significant Republican gains in the district in the 2025 election cycle where he won.
“In Queens, in my portion of the district, Mamdani lost to Cuomo by 27%. And also, a Republican city councilwoman from the City of New York won in my district, and she won big. And then in my Long Island portion of it, which is not the city, but it’s right next to the city, Mamdani was weaponized by the Republicans in their races, and they won everything,” Suozzi said.
“I was always in a vulnerable district, because Trump won by 19,000 votes and I won by 11,000 votes, and I had to get 20,000 people who voted for Donald Trump to also vote for me,” he said. “But that’s still the case for me. So while there were a lot of Democratic victories throughout the country on Election Day, in my district, it still performed pretty Republican.”
He credited his success with “listening” to voters on both sides and reflecting those views in Washington.
“The reason I was successful in 2024 is because I was endorsed by the police, is because I was clear on my position on immigration, that we do need to secure the border, because I’m fighting for affordability. I mean, I feel like I’ve got to do what the people are asking to do,” he said.
Suozzi conceded that he believed both Trump and Mamdani were correct in their focus on the high cost of living.
“Mamdani was right, much like Trump is right, that people are economically insecure. They’re worried about their financial security. They properly diagnose the problem,” he said.
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“The challenge is, you know, what’s the solution? I believe that socialism is a terrible solution. It will not work. It’s never worked in the history of the world. And it will not work now.”
But he urged Democrats nationwide to continue the focus on affordability, both trying to find solutions that are unique to their districts and on the federal level.
One example he cited was the minimum wage, which has been $7.25 on the federal level since July 2009.
“That’s absurd, 20 states have a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. We should be fighting to increase the minimum wage,” he said.
In the end, however, he called for a Democratic Party that errs away from socialism on the national level.
“We’ve got to be capitalist, not socialist. We’ve got to be mainstream, not extreme. We’ve got to be about safety, not lawlessness. We’ve got to be for reform, not the status quo,” Suozzi said. “We have to be proud of our country, not ashamed of our country.”
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