Thanks to you at home for joining me on this very special election Tuesday.

The polls have just closed in the election for New York's third congressional district

and it would not be election night without our own Steve Cornaki at the big board who we will be going to in just a moment as those results start rolling in.

At this time, perhaps not exactly surprisingly, NBC News is characterizing the New York House 3 special election

race as too early to call.

Now if New York's third congressional district does ring a bell for you.

That is probably because the district found itself

in the National Spotlight, while it was represented

by Republican Congressman and Serial Fabulous George Santos, a man who is not a Broadway producer nor a

champion volleyball player nor the victim of an assassination attempt, but

pretended he was all of those things and more.

Now back in December, the House gave George Santos the boot.

They expelled him.

And today, New York's third congressional district

is in the national spotlight for another reason.

On the surface level, this is a local race between Democrat Tom Swazi and Republican

Mazzi Pillip.

Mr Swazi is a three-term congressman from the district who left that seat to run for governor

and is now coming back trying to take back his old seat. The Republican in this

race, Massey Philip, is a member of the local Nassau County legislature and she's been

framing much of her campaign around her position as a legal immigrant willing to

take a hard line on what she calls illegal immigration. But this race is about a lot more

...