Could Mazi Pilip be the answer to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and her ilk? That’s our hope after her interview with our A.R. Hoffman. The GOP majority in the House is down to but two seats. So the special election on February 13 on Long Island will give voters of New York’s third district a chance to boost the GOP’s slender margin in the House and bolster efforts to tame overspending, control the border, and rein in regulatory abuses. 

Even if Republicans had a more comfortable position in the House, the merits of the GOP nominee over her Democratic rival, Thomas Suozzi, are clear. Like Ms. Omar, Ms. Pilip is an immigrant from Africa. The youthful Ms. Pilip was born in Ethiopia to Jewish parents. She was airlifted to Israel at 12 and later served in the paratroopers’ brigade in the IDF. She moved to America, settling at Great Neck, Nassau County, and now has seven children.

“She is the American success story,” Peter King, who represented Long Island for some 30 years, tells the New York Times. “Some people have superstar capacity. She walks into the room, people notice her, they listen to her.” Following her election to the Nassau County Legislature, Ms. Pilip’s energies have been focused on “investments in public safety,” her campaign biography says, and she has “held the line on property taxes.” 

On the Israel-Hamas war, Ms. Pilip’s election would rebuke a Democratic coterie in the House, including Ms. Omar, that is agitating for a cease-fire. She vows to stand with “our closest ally,” explaining on X that as “a former IDF soldier, I understand how to keep Israel safe, as well as Americans in Israel.” She avers she “will never bow to terrorists.” Ms. Pilip is just the kind of leader to rebut the canard of colonialism from the Democratic Party’s leftists.

The Democrats and their allies, sensing the stakes in the race, are “flooding the zone” with campaign ads, our Russell Payne reports. They plan to spend some $7 million, with $5.2 million coming from the Democrats’ House Majority political action committee amid a larger attempt to smear Ms. Pilip as a “MAGA Republican” candidate. The GOP is stepping in with some $2 million in ads in what the New York Post calls a “catch-up” effort. 

“Shame on them,” Ms. Pilip tells Mr. Hoffman. She adds that voters in the third district “are smart enough to realize who’s telling the truth and who’s lying. And I am here to serve the people, to be the voice for everyone.” There are grounds for GOP optimism considering the recent trends on Long Island. “Republicans would seem to enter the race as the party to beat based on the past three years of electoral history,” City & State reports.

That contrasts with Mr. Suozzi’s position vis-à-vis his fellow Democrats, from whom he appears to be keeping a judicious distance. His launch event “featured no other current or former Democratic officials,” City & State notes. He appears to have no plans to seek campaigning help from Governor Hochul. No wonder, seeing as Congressman Lee Zeldin, Ms. Hochul’s rival in 2022, beat her soundly in Nassau County and Long Island.

The Times calls it “a bold gamble by Long Island Republicans” to back Ms. Pilip, whom it calls a “relatively unknown candidate” with a “thin political résumé.” If Ms. Pilip is relatively inexperienced, though, it’s to her credit, given that what she lacks experience in is hiking taxes. Ms. Pilip made a fine impression in her visit to the Sun. She’d be a good bet on Lord Nelson’s advice — “the boldest measures are the safest.”