A new ad by the DCCC hammers George Santos’s “amazing friend” and would-be Republican replacement Mazi Melesa Pilip over her running on “the New York Conservative Party” ticket in next month’s special election to fill in the seat. The Empire State’s stupid system for some reason allows Republican and Democratic candidates to appear redundantly on ballots as the nominees for minor parties no one’s ever heard of – and that rarely if ever actually run their own candidates.

Most of the time this is meaningless, but Dems are going all in for former NY-03 Congressman Tom Suozzi and leaving no stone such as the “Conservative Party” platform’s pro-national abortion ban unturned, per Punchbowl News. “They’d ban abortion even in New York, even in cases of rape or incest,” says the ad, purposely omitting Pilip’s probably fake pro-choice rhetoric.

Separately The Messenger reports Republicans have yet to make any significant investment in the district, quoting some NRCC spokesworm brushing the disparity off with “Democrats know that their policies are hurting New Yorkers and causing voters to seek relief. No amount of money can undo the disastrous Biden-Suozzi agenda of open borders and rising crime,” as if that’s going to do it.

Dems are (correctly) thinking much bigger. “If we win this, it shows momentum, it shows donors that there’s a real viable chance of… flipping back some seats that have been trending red,” said a Democratic House strategist, adding “If we can win this back, that’s a pretty great start of 2024 for us. If we can win this seat now, it is non-competitive for Republicans in November… Let’s mark this one off the board early… It’s just one less headache down the road if we can.”