A major victory for Democrats this evening. Tom Swazi winning the special house election in New York, picking up the seat previously held by the expelled Republican fabulous George Santos, and eroding the Republicans already razor-thin majority in the US House of Representatives. Swazi, a former congressman, now congressman-elect, defeating Republican Mazy Pillip in New York's third Congressional district in the Long Island area. Let's take a look at the status of votes right now with 87% of the vote in. Swazi still has a commanding lead with 54.2% of the vote, 83,405 votes. That's 12,990 votes ahead of Republican Mazy Pillip, who has 45.8% of the vote. This is something of a shellacking in a district that had pulled pretty much neck and neck through out the race. And this is why this House race matters so much. With Swazy's win, the Democrats win, Democrats will now have 213 House seats compared to 219 with Republicans, with three seats still remaining vacant right now. So that means Republicans now face an even tougher path to push through legislation as the 2024 election year unfolds. With that six-vote majority, they can only afford to lose three Republican votes in any one vote.

Let's go to Miguel Marquez, who is at Swazi campaign headquarters in Woodbury, New York. And Miguel, a huge win for Swazi and Democrats this evening.

Enormous and early as well. There was growing confidence when they saw the early votes come in, the absentees, and they felt that they had some momentum going. But the Republican machine here in Nassau County is renowned. They can get the vote out. But that snowstorm hit, that may have helped Democrats as well. I think that they expected to have a decent night tonight. I do not think that they expected to call it this early. Swazi talking up there today, just a short time ago, saying that this will send a signal to Democrats everywhere about how they have to win and what they need to win in November. For Republicans in Purple Districts, they better pay attention because they are coming from that for them. It was a very, very strong statement about what worked in this specific race. There were a couple of protesters who tried to break in, but there were shouts of swazi swazi as soon as they did, and they moved them out. To be there. They also had a mic issue, so he was buying time up there so that people could place their mics up on the lectern because the system they have here did not work.

But even the protesters that showed what a pro is in campaigning, he basically just said, I love America. He wants people to be able to speak. He's very, very quick. He ran a very, very aggressive campaign and never wasted a minute. His entire campaign staff was completely on it every single day. That's something we did not see out of the Republican side. So it was interesting to see these two campaigns next to each other. Jake.

All right, Miguel Marquez at Swazi headquarters in New York. Let's check in now with the White House because President Biden just put out a statement about his party's win in New York. And with that story, let's go to CNN's MJ Lee, who's at the White House. Mj, what does President Biden have to say this evening?

Yeah, this is actually a new statement that we've just gotten from the Biden campaign manager. It doesn't actually mention Tom Swasi by name, interestingly. But in terms of what the message is, it couldn't be more explicit. It starts with the words, Donald Trump lost again tonight. It goes on to say, When Republicans run on Trump's extreme agenda, even in a Republican-held seat, voters reject them. It also says, Trump and the MAGA extremists in the House are already paying the political price for derailing a bipartisan deal to secure our borders and fix our broken immigration system. Obviously, as you have been talking about all night, immigration and the border has been such a big issue in this race. When I was talking to a Biden campaign official earlier, they pointed out that Swazi actually didn't even get a chance to run ads on Republicans walking away from that border deal, and they feel like this is a good sign for Democrats that this issue and this criticism has really resonated. I think also, Jake, in the Swazi campaign, we saw a model for how Democrats are having to navigate the political reality that they have a very unpopular leader of the party.

That's President Biden, of course. We saw Swazi really keeping his distance from President Biden in his victory speech earlier tonight, didn't even mention the President President. So that is a Balancing Act that we are continuing to see Democrats having to juggle throughout the country.

All right, Emjie Lee at the White House for us. Thank you so much. And however unpopular Joe Biden might prove, it is obviously a good day for Biden and for Democrats, and a bad one for Trump and Republicans.

It is. This was before George Santos was expelled. If you just start with one, that was red. And tonight it is blue, and Tom Swasi will be the congressman again from the district. Here we are, we're up to about 87%. Just look at that.

I do not expect that. That's a shellacking.

That is a shellacking. And it could be that a bit of the margin, let's give a bit of the margin, maybe to the weather, but let's also not give the Republicans the excuse of the weather. Democrats.