(Headline USA) A New York Democrat vying for the seat of ousted Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., seat admitted this week that he has been avoiding President Joe Biden while the president campaigns, warning Biden and the “Democratic label” are “in trouble.”
Tom Suozzi, a former three-term Democratic U.S. representative, was asked whether he planned to invite Biden to any of his campaign events while the president was in New York fundraising for his own reelection bid.
“I can pretty much guarantee the president is not going to be coming to campaign,” Suozzi said during an interview with CNN on Monday. “I don’t think it would be helpful, just as I don’t think Donald Trump would be helpful to my opponent.”
Suozzi is locked in a tight race with Republican candidate Mazi Pilip in the Feb. 13 special election for the 3rd Congressional District.
“It’s a very tough seat,” he said.
“Democrats have been losing everything on Long Island and northeast Queens for the past three years,” he added. “The Democratic brand is in trouble here, and we have to do a lot to overcome that.”
Suozzi has also tried to distance himself from the radical leftists in the Democratic Party, telling the New York Post last week that the “progressive left wing of the Democratic Party is hurting Democrats throughout the country.”
The New York Democrat isn’t the only vulnerable candidate intentionally keeping Biden at arm’s length. Several top House Democratic leaders, for example, have signaled that they want to keep their politically vulnerable lawmakers away from Biden during the campaign.
Even Biden’s own campaign admitted the president would have limited interaction with vulnerable Democrats.
Asked whether Biden planned to campaign with Democrats in close races this week, Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., the chairwoman of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, said he will be out with “some,” though she did not specify which candidates have agreed to it.
“I think like I said, it depends on where they have their map, where they’re going,” DelBene said. “We obviously have our focus where we have our battleground and front-line districts.”
