|
To: Interested Parties
From: Riya Vashi, DCCC Regional Press Secretary
Date: June 23, 2026
Subject: The Case Against Mike LiPetri
Tom Suozzi is a lifelong Long Islander who has spent his career fighting for Nassau and Queens families at every level of public service. As Mayor of Glen Cove, Nassau County Executive, and now the voice for New York’s Third District in the halls of Congress, Tom has built a reputation as a bipartisan problem-solver who delivers results on issues his district cares most about. From lowering costs, to improving public safety, to protecting access to health care, to protecting the Long Island Sound, to working across the aisle to address complex issues like securing the border, Tom has built a proven record of putting Long Island and Queens families first.
Tom is ranked one of the most bipartisan members of Congress in New York and is the only New York Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, where he is fighting to lower costs for Long Island and Queens families. He has followed through on his campaign promises, especially by working with both parties to find bipartisan solutions to secure the border and deliver comprehensive immigration reform through his role on the Committee on Homeland Security. Tom launched the Democratic Border Security Task Force and has co-led bipartisan legislation to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security and reform ICE. While extreme voices in Washington play politics with border security, Tom has rolled up his sleeves and gotten to work.
Then there’s proven liar and loser Mike LiPetri. A perennial candidate who has already been rejected by Long Island voters twice, LiPetri served a single term in Albany, jumped to run for Congress the first chance he got, lost his 2020 primary by more than 20 points, then cashed in as a corporate lobbyist for big tech, big pharma, and other special interests. After losing to Tom Suozzi in 2024, LiPetri is back for another try as the Nassau GOP’s handpicked candidate — the same machine that gave NY-03 disgraced ex-Congressman George Santos and failed 2024 special election candidate Mazi Pilip. NY-03 has rejected the Nassau GOP machine before. Tom won all three counties in the district in 2024 and continues to deliver real, bipartisan results for Long Island and Queens families every day.
LiPetri’s shameful record of praising the Big, Ugly Bill, inflating his resume, being implicated in a sketchy financial scheme alongside George Santos, and embracing extreme Washington party bosses Donald Trump and Mike Johnson makes the choice clear for NY03 voters. Tom Suozzi is a trusted Congressman and undeniable electoral overperformer who Queens and Nassau County families are eager to once again reelect. They won’t be swayed by stunts like House Republicans’ pathetic deployment of Vice President JD Vance to Bethpage to campaign against Suozzi on taxpayers’ dimes, leveling absurd attacks on Tom that this electorate, who has supported him for years, will dismiss out of hand.
LiPetri’s Santos-esque Pattern of Shady Financial Dealings, Sketchy Schemes, and Phony Claims
Nassau and Queens families already made it clear they were fed up with fraud, chaos, and dysfunction, yet Mike LiPetri has taken a page directly from disgraced ex-Congressman George Santos’s playbook.
In fact, LiPetri was implicated in a sketchy financial scheme alongside Santos himself. In 2021, LiPetri and Santos approached a campaign donor with a proposition to open an LLC for an unnamed Polish citizen to buy cryptocurrency, and would only share more if the donor signed an NDA. LiPetri refused to comment on his involvement when the New York Times asked in July and December 2023. FEC records show a $500 contribution to Santos’s 2022 campaign tied to LiPetri’s address.
Just like Santos, LiPetri also has a knack for exaggerating the truth. Newsday caught LiPetri inflating his resume by claiming he had “successfully prosecuted or aided the prosecution” of criminals while working for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Albany County DA, and the New York Attorney General. In reality, LiPetri was an unpaid law school intern who was not even a barred attorney at the time. Even Republicans have now publicly demanded he “come clean on resume fraud.”
After voters rejected him in 2020, LiPetri cashed in as a corporate lobbyist at Park Strategies, serving as Managing Director of a firm that took $216,000 from the gun industry to lobby on its behalf.
The people of Queens and Nassau County are fed up with fraud, chaos, and dysfunction, yet LiPetri has spent the years since his last failed campaign cashing in for big corporations. Tom Suozzi has spent that time delivering for Nassau and Queens families on the issues that matter most.
LiPetri Is a Rubberstamp for His Extreme Party Bosses’ Agenda That Raises Costs and Slashes Health Care
Mike LiPetri has fully embraced the dangerous agenda being pushed on Long Island by the most extreme voices in Washington. LiPetri has praised D.C. Republicans’ disastrous Big, Ugly Bill and accepted Trump’s “Complete and Total Endorsement” as a “MAGA Warrior.” The Big, Ugly Bill LiPetri is so proud to support is projected to kick nearly 25,000 NY-03 residents off their health insurance, cost Long Island nearly 7,000 jobs, and put Nassau University Medical Center, Mercy Hospital, and South Nassau Communities Hospital at risk of closure. While LiPetri cheers the Big, Ugly Bill, Tom Suozzi voted against it, has co-led bipartisan work to extend ACA tax credits and protect Long Island families from skyrocketing health care costs, and continues to push his bipartisan Affordability Agenda to deliver real relief on housing, child care, energy, and food costs.
But LiPetri’s loyalty to his party bosses does not stop with Trump. LiPetri is the handpicked choice of the Nassau County GOP machine, led by extremists Joe Cairo and Bruce Blakeman, the same operation that gave NY-03 George Santos. LiPetri has made it clear he will rubber stamp every piece of an agenda that is making Long Island less affordable and less safe.
LiPetri Is on the Wrong Side of the Issues That Matter Most to Nassau and Queens
Mike LiPetri’s brief stint in elected office as a member of the New York State Assembly has proven that he is completely misaligned on the issues that matter to his constituents.
Despite running as “100% Back the Blue,” LiPetri voted against more than $1.7 billion in funding for the New York State Police and against $1 million for crime reduction and gang violence prevention programs on Long Island. In a district that strongly supports commonsense gun safety, LiPetri proudly touted an NRA endorsement in his 2020 run for Congress, and his Albany record on gun safety is just as extreme. LiPetri voted against expanding background checks, against Extreme Risk Protection Orders to keep guns away from dangerous people, and against banning weapons on school grounds.
LiPetri also opposed state budgets that delivered critical funding for New York families, including $500 million for clean water infrastructure, over $1 billion in school aid, and critical repairs and upgrades for the LIRR. He called those budgets to improve Long Island families’ schools, daily commutes, and drinking water full of “dangerous and radical provisions.” While he calls safer roads and cleaner water “dangerous,” LiPetri ran on the Conservative Party platform that called for banning abortion in New York even in cases of rape and incest. He voted against the Reproductive Health Act, against requiring insurance coverage for contraception, and proudly stated that he voted against codifying Roe v. Wade into state law.
As LiPetri voted against Long Island’s basic needs, Tom Suozzi has spent his career delivering for his community, including lowering crime to historically low levels as Nassau County Executive, protecting the Long Island Sound, securing bipartisan infrastructure investments, and fighting to lower taxes for working families.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
Spectrum NY1: Suozzi leads bipartisan push to end DHS shutdown as stalemate drags on [Spectrum NY1, 4/1/26]
The Hill: Suozzi, Bacon pitch ACA subsidies extension: ‘It will save people thousands and thousands of dollars’ [The Hill, 11/16/25]
Jewish Insider: Tom Suozzi introduces federal buffer zone bill protecting synagogues, religious institutions [Jewish Insider, 4/24/26]
Spectrum NY1: New York congressman leads bipartisan effort to kill Trump’s $1.8 billion ‘slush fund’ [Spectrum NY1, 5/26/26]
Politico: Suozzi, Gillen and Riley have a midterm $tash [Politico, 2/3/26]
Newsday: Rep. Tom Suozzi announces House group to press for border deal [Newsday, 03/12/24]
Spectrum NY1: Suozzi named co-chair of Democratic Border Security Task Force [Spectrum NY1, 3/12/24]
Newsday: GOP hopefuls for Suozzi’s seat both say they are the true MAGA candidate [Newsday, 6/7/26]
Yonkers Times: Congressional Candidate in NY-3 Accused of Resume Fraud [Yonkers Times, 5/13/26]
“Mr. LiPetri’s Assembly biography (he served one year in that body before announcing his first failed run for Congress) explicitly stated he had “worked in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, Albany County District Attorney’s Office, and the Attorney General of the State of New York”, positions that Newsday confirmed were unpaid student internships. LiPetri was not admitted to the New York State Bar until January 21, 2016, years after he claimed to have prosecuted criminals.”
PATH TO VICTORY
Tom Suozzi keeps winning New York’s Third Congressional District because Long Island and Queens families trust him to deliver real results, and the numbers prove it. In 2024, Tom won reelection with 51.8% of the two-way vote, the strongest performance of any federal Democrat on the NY-03 ballot that year, and a 3.8-point improvement over Democratic performance in the district in 2022. Even as the district shifted right at the top of the ticket, Tom ran nearly four points ahead of Kamala Harris, firmly holding his ground. That kind of electoral strength is nothing new for Tom, who has consistently outrun the top of the ticket cycle after cycle, from 2016 through his 2024 win over Mike LiPetri.
Tom Suozzi’s winning coalition runs straight through the heart of NY-03. He dominates the Queens precinct of the district and continues to deepen his support across northern Nassau, including with the district’s large and growing AANHPI community, where his support has climbed since his 2024 special election win. In an economically diverse, highly college-educated, suburban district that has backed candidates of both parties, Tom has built exactly the kind of durable, bipartisan coalition Mike LiPetri has never come close to garnering.
In November, voters will choose between a proven bipartisan problem-solver who has spent his life delivering for Nassau and Queens, and a failed perennial candidate who sells out to corporate special interests and rubberstamps the Washington agenda raising their costs. NY-03 voters rejected LiPetri once, and they will do it again this November. |
