Following the victory of Tom Suozzi in New York’s third congressional district, Democrats now have a tried-and-true method for going on the offensive on issues of immigration and border security. Republicans’ inability to work on a bipartisan deal, Democrats say, could contribute to the GOP’s unmaking in November. 

In a memo titled “Going on the Offense” that was sent to Democrats on Wednesday morning, Senator Murphy — who negotiated the Senate’s foreign aid/border security compromise — said Democrats have a great opportunity to put Republicans on their heels with respect to the border. 

“As the lead Democratic negotiator of the bipartisan border reform bill, I had a firsthand view of Republicans’ stunning about face on border security. While I am angry that Republicans killed our carefully crafted bipartisan bill to bring better control to our border, Democrats now have an obligation and an opportunity to expose Republicans’ hypocrisy,” Mr. Murphy writes in his memo.

“It is a red alarm political imperative for us to expose the truth: Republicans do not actually care about securing our border. Last fall, Republicans demanded that Democrats and Republicans negotiate a bipartisan fix to the border crisis,” he continues. “But within hours of the bill’s release, Republicans announced their near-universal opposition to the bill. Not because the bill wouldn’t fix the problem, but because Donald Trump told Republicans to oppose any bipartisan bill that would fix the border in order to help his re-election prospects.”

Democrats are especially giddy on Capitol Hill following the return of Mr. Suozzi, the Democrat who won back George Santos’s seat by a relatively large margin despite President Biden being unpopular in the district, which has traditionally leaned Democratic and where Mr. Suozzi had previously served in Congress before Mr. Santos. 

When the bipartisan border agreement was unveiled a few days ago, Mr. Suozzi gave it a full-throated endorsement. “If I was in Congress, I would absolutely support it,” Mr. Suozzi told Spectrum News. “It’s what people want and people deserve action on this crisis, at this time.”

His Republican opponent, Mazi Pilip, went along with Speaker Johnson’s line that the Senate’s border deal would allow the “invasion” at the southern border to continue due to more lax asylum standards. The Republican author of the bill, Senator Lankford, said those criticisms are not true. 

One Democratic strategist who was a senior advisor to Secretary Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign, Lis Smith, said Mr. Suozzi proved that Democrats could lean in to issues on which Republicans have capitalized, and take them to task for not being serious about solutions. 

“In 2022, Dems’ messaging fell flat. Crime was a top issue for voters, but Dems ignored that and tried to change the subject to abortion. Came across as out of touch,” she wrote on X after Mr. Suozzi’s victory. “Same dynamic could’ve unfolded in this race. Suozzi could’ve ignored immigration, dismissed voters’ concerns about migrants, [and] tried to change the subject. But he didn’t. He actually leaned in on it.”

The migrant crisis has hit New York City and parts of Long Island particularly hard, and Mr. Suozzi’s district — which includes parts of Queens and most of suburban Nassau County — has been inundated with local news stories about Governor Hochul’s massive budget for migrants and the strain the crisis puts on local governments. 

Republicans called him “Sanctuary Suozzi,” said he was trying to dismantle Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and tried to tie him to “the Squad” and a next-door congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

Instead, Mr. Suozzi highlighted his record of working on a bipartisan border deal with a Republican congressman, Peter King, who retired in 2022. He said he would like to see 80 percent of the migrants in his district be deported. Mr. Suozzi was then able to hit Ms. Pilip as not being serious regarding the border after she came out against the bipartisan deal. 

Mr. Suozzi “ran ads highlighting how he’d broken with Dems in the past on immigration. He hammered Pilip in the debate for offering no solutions. He called out the GOP for tanking a bipartisan deal to boost Trump in November,” Ms. Smith writes. “Make a proactive case. Make a contrast. Don’t be scared of your own shadow.”