New York Rep. Tom Suozzi lost the Democratic nomination for governor Tuesday. He had 12 percent of the vote when The Associated Press called the race at 9:25 p.m. Eastern Time.
Gov. Kathy Hochul won the primary with 65 percent of the vote. New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams was second with 22 percent, with an estimated 16 percent of the vote counted. She will face Rep. Lee Zeldin, who won a four-way Republican primary with 43 percent of the vote.
Hochul, who had been lieutenant governor, became the state’s first female governor in August when then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned from office.
Suozzi is in his third term representing the 3rd District. The filing period for the state’s congressional primaries, which will be held Aug. 23, closed earlier this month.
A self-proclaimed “commonsense Democrat,” Suozzi is a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and sits on the Ways and Means Committee, where he has been involved in the effort to lift the cap on the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT.
Suozzi ran as a moderate and said in a recent podcast interview he would run the state “more effectively, more efficiently.” Throughout the campaign, he focused on issues including crime and lowering taxes.
Before being elected to Congress in 2016, Suozzi served as mayor of Glen Cove and as Nassau County executive. He ran for governor in 2006, earning just 18 percent of the vote and losing in the Democratic primary to Eliot Spitzer, who went on to win the general election.
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