from WNYC studios. I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Thursday, January 25th.

Now we'll look at the high-stakes special election taking place to replace George Santos in Congress, in which voting

is already underway if you have a mail-in ballot. The in-person voting begins next Saturday, February

3rd. The district in Queens and Nassau County is very swingy, Democratic for a long time,

Republican recently, Biden for president, Santos for Congress.

We've been discussing the race in the local context since the candidates were chosen.

Today we'll look at it more in the national election year context of how it might be a bellwether

for what crucial suburban swing district voters care about nationwide as the parties compete to

not just win the presidency, but also control of Congress. The candidates are Democrat Tom Swazi,

who held the seat before Santos and a Republican relative newcomer, Mazee Pillip, who is a member

of the Nassau County Legislature. My guest for this is Abby Livingston,

who writes about political campaigns in Congress for the politics and business site, Puck News.

Abby, thanks for coming on with us. Welcome to WNYC. Thanks so much for having me.

You wrote that in national politics terms, the race to replace Santos is a gift from the gods,

a dry run for both parties on abortion, immigration, and candidate quality in a pure toss-up

district.

So how much are they looking to see literally whether abortion rights, good for the Democrats,

or immigration, good for the Republicans, moves people to the polls more?

That is the absolute obsession of this race and what the Democratic and Republican operatives,

all they want to talk about, about this contest.

And the reason is, is because, as you stated, this is such a toss-up district.

So I think the thing to look at it is this is a very important seat in Congress just at a base level because Republicans have such a tight, tight majority.

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