Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Thursday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we interview Rep.-elect George Santos, who won his Long Island congressional race against Robert Zimmerman, and talk to Sen. Susan Collins about her recent trip to Israel and priorities as the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee in the next Congress. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Matti Friedman, Ksenia Sobchak and U.K. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.
It’s not February yet, but it sure feels like Groundhog Day. As results from a number of key House and Senate races — which will decide control of both chambers — continued to trickle in yesterday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced that the Senate race between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Republican Herschel Walker will head to a runoff next month, the second time in two years that a Georgia Senate candidate has failed to reach the requisite 50% to avoid such a scenario.
It feels a lot like 2020, when Warnock advanced to a runoff against Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), who for a year had held the seat vacated by Sen. Johnny Isakson. As Five Thirty Eight put it, “Runoffs Are Sort Of Georgia’s Thing Now.”
Elections officials in Nevada and Arizona are still tabulating the results of those state’s elections. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) holds a 5-point lead over venture capitalist Blake Masters with 70% of the votes in, while next door in Nevada, Adam Laxalt is up 2 points against Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV). If Kelly and Laxalt hold onto their leads, we’re looking at a situation where — again — control of the Senate comes down to GOTV efforts in the Peach State.
While we won’t know the final make-up of the Senate for another month, control of the House is likely to be decided over the coming days, as the final race calls come in. In Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) held onto her seat in her second race against Lisa Scheller, while state Rep. Summer Lee was declared the winner over Mike Doyle in the state’s 12th District. In New York’s 19th Congressional District, Republican Marc Molinaro, who fell short in his special election bid against Pat Ryan over the summer, defeated Democrat Josh Riley. Molinaro will now serve alongside Ryan, who won his race in the redrawn 18th District. In New Jersey, Tom Kean Jr., ousted Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), two years after falling short in their first match-up. John James won his first House race in Michigan’s 10th District after two failed Senate bids, while Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT) narrowly won reelection.
One of the biggest upsets yesterday was the race in New York’s 17th Congressional District, where state Assemblymember Mike Lawler defeated Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), the chair of the DCCC who had received blowback for running in a district that had, under the prior congressional map, been largely represented by freshman Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY).
While the results of the Hudson Valley race were a personal blow to Maloney, Democrats were able to claim success for their controversial primary effort to boost far-right candidates over more centrist Republicans: None of the six Republicans — including two House candidates — who advanced to the general election with help from Democrats won on Tuesday. As it becomes increasingly likely that control of the House could come down to just a couple of seats, the Democrats’ primary strategy may end up being Maloney’s legacy.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, actor David Schwimmer and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) are among the featured speakers at the Anti-Defamation League’s “Never is Now” summit, taking place today in Manhattan. Follow Ben Sales, the news editor of JI’s sister publication eJewishPhilanthropy, on Twitter at @BenjaminSales for on-the-ground updates from the conference.
President Joe Biden heads to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, tonight for COP27. Israeli President Isaac Herzog was in the Sinai resort city earlier this week for the first days of the United Nations annual climate conference, but is now back in Israel, where he is meeting today with heads of parties in the next Knesset.
suozzi’s successor
Meet the next Jewish Republican congressman from Long Island

In his second consecutive bid for a New York congressional seat, George Santos made history on Tuesday, winning a competitive race that will make him the first openly gay representative from Long Island elected to serve in the House. The newly minted congressman-elect, who will succeed outgoing Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), can also claim another unique distinction: Santos, 34, will be the only Jewish Republican member of New York’s House delegation when he is sworn in this January. It is not a position Santos is taking for granted, he explained in a recent interview with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel, as he prepares to represent New York’s heavily Jewish 3rd Congressional District, which covers the North Shore of Long Island as well as a portion of eastern Queens. “The way I look at this is, I’m going to represent one of the most Jewish-rich districts in the country, with the most population of Jews,” he told JI on Wednesday, “and I’m going to do that honorably.”
Constituent services: Days before the election, Santos met Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel David Lau, at the Chabad of Great Neck, where the Republican candidate spoke with Jewish community members and vowed to “stand strong as antisemitism and violent crime shakes us to the core,” according to a recent social media post. He said he would apply the same level of commitment to every constituent in the district. “Whether my mother’s Jewish background beliefs, which are mine, or my father’s Roman Catholic beliefs, which are also mine, are represented or not,” he said, “I want to represent everyone else that practices every other religion to make sure everybody feels like they have a partner in me.”
Trend lines: Santos’ victory comes as Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), one of two Jewish Republicans in the House, leaves Washington. Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic strategist in New York, said there was once a “substantial number” of Jewish Republican members of Congress in the New York City suburbs. “Santos may be the beginning of something new or just the creation of something old, which is suburban Jews as Republicans,” Sheinkopf said, suggesting that the Long Island election could hint at a possible “resurgence of suburban Jews finding themselves much more comfortable with Republicans than Democrats.”
Persian pals: In his outreach to voters in Nassau County, where Democrats hold a registration advantage, Santos recalled building close relationships with Persian Jews in Great Neck, who are traditionally conservative and, broadly speaking, believe that nuclear negotiations with Iran lend legitimacy to an authoritarian regime. “My friends in the Persian community, they’re fantastic to me…I go to Shabbat with them, I go to temple with them,” Santos said. “I think the largest crime that we can talk about when it comes to antisemitism and the threat to Israel is any kind of negotiation with Iran,” Santos argued. “I want people to understand that I’m a ‘no’ on any kind of deal with Iran. I’m a ‘no’ on any kind of money given to Iran. Matter of fact, I believe sanctions should be doubled and tripled.”
Israel ties: Santos, who described himself as a non-observant Jew, said his four visits to Israel were “the most exciting experiences” of his life. “I’m a partner of Israel. In foreign policy, I believe Israel is our friend, Israel is our ally, and they’re the only democracy in the Middle East and we need to defend them,” he said. “They have a right to exist, they have a right to defend themselves, and it is a promise that must be kept to the Jewish people. I will continue to fight and be an ally for them.” He said he was “very much looking forward, as a member of Congress, to working with” Benjamin Netanyahu, who is likely to be tapped to form the next government in the coming days. “I’m very excited to see the U.S.-Israel alliance just grow stronger and stronger each day.”