Within hours of Tom Suozzi’s decisive victory in a House special election in New York last week, the optimistic pronouncements from Democrats began rolling in.

Gov. Kathy Hochul vowed that her party’s path to regaining control of the House of Representatives “flows through New York.” And the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, took a shot at the “much-hyped Nassau County Republican machine.”

The outcome for Democrats was a welcome reversal of fortune on Long Island, where voters — wary of property taxes, inflation and a pandemic-era jump in crime — had recently embraced Republicans.

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Until Suozzi’s victory in New York’s 3rd Congressional District, Republicans had held all four congressional seats on Long Island, and they crushed Democrats in a pivotal 2022 election, helping swing the House to Republican control.

It is far from clear if Suozzi’s defeat of the Republicans’ largely untested candidate, Mazi Pilip, was simply a product of its unique circumstances — a February special election to replace George Santos, a Republican whose never-ending cascade of lies led to his expulsion last year.

But Democrats contend that Suozzi’s successful approach — concentrating on the improving economy and adopting moderate stances on divisive issues such as crime and immigration — portends bigger gains for the party in the fall.

“Common-sense Democrats can win on Long Island when our voters come out,” said Laura Gillen, a Democrat who is trying to unseat Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, a first-term Republican, in the neighboring 4th District in southern and central Nassau County, adding that her party should not “let the GOP own tough issues.”

Gillen, who lost to D’Esposito in 2022, added: “I think this was a firm rejection of the GOP’s rigid ‘my way or the highway’ political agenda that they’ve been taking.”

Broad discontent with leaders from both major parties was evident in interviews with dozens of voters in the 3rd District. If there was frustration with President Joe Biden, there was also reluctance to return to Donald Trump.

“Anything that will defeat Trump and Republican craziness,” said Mark Rubin, 64, a retired founder of a manufacturing business who cast an emphatic vote for Suozzi mostly because Suozzi is not a member of Trump’s party. “Make sure the Democratic Party can be counted on.”

Victor Basile, 71, and his wife, Lois Basile, said they had been lifelong Republicans but switched to registered Democrats after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Still, they said they tried to support the best candidate, regardless of party affiliation, and voted for Suozzi.

“After what was going on with the Republican Party, we just said, ‘You know, I don’t want to be associated with it,’” said Victor Basile, a retired advertiser. “I never remembered people being so die-hard, one party versus the other for the sake of the party.”

Lois Basile, 68, a retired nurse, added, “It’s a little frightening, the country the way it is now.”

The voter interviews revealed that crime was still a concern. Robyn Smith, who lives in Roslyn, said surveillance video showed attempted thefts of her family’s cars. Her children had experienced several school lockdowns, she said, and she fears for her safety when she shops at Roosevelt Field in nearby Garden City, one of the county’s largest shopping malls: “Every time I go there, I have to take off all my jewelry. Can’t carry anything.”

Chris Cavalli, 37, a restaurateur and Republican from Mineola, said when it comes to crime, he gives his party the edge. “I would like to see Republicans take a more conservative approach to spending and maintain a tough stance on crime, illegal immigration and accountability,” he said, adding that the Democrats were trying “to restrict American’s freedoms on everything from speech to guns.”

Republicans hope that continued fears of crime as well as the migrant influx will remain potent issues come November.

But Jay Jacobs, the state Democratic Party chair, said attempts by Republicans in Washington to scare voters on public safety could backfire, noting that local issues such as property taxes — particularly a cap on property tax deductions introduced under the Trump administration — continued to concern Long Islanders.

“I think we’re going to have an easier time making an argument in the 4th,” he said.

Some voters were not buying the Democrats’ arguments, including the Forge family from Greenvale, who made a point of voting early — and together — for Pilip on Feb. 11 at the Gayle Community Center in Roslyn. They cited the migrant crisis and the increasing proximity of rising crime, noting a neighbor had recently experienced a home invasion.

“We pay so much to buy property here; even buying a rundown dilapidated house is so expensive,” said Richard Forge, 29, a registered independent and an office manager for a medical practice. “Then to have this going on in your backyard? You think you’re forking over all this money for a reason, but if it’s just going to go downhill, what’s the point?”

In this election cycle, Republican leaders oriented their message around immigration and border control policies, blaming Biden and Suozzi — whom they derided as “Sanctuary Suozzi” — for the large migrant influx.

Last week, the Republican messaging was effectively parried by Suozzi, who managed to lure independents — whose votes are often decisive in swing districts — to his side.

“These voters know Tom Suozzi,” said Jacobs, who also serves as party chair in Nassau County, which makes up the vast majority of the 3rd District. He added that he felt voters were casting a vote for bipartisanship. “The common theme is they want action. They want government to solve problems, not make problems.”

With the 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts — the first in Suffolk County on the eastern end of Long Island and the other largely in Suffolk — tending to lean Republican, the key battleground is likely to be D’Esposito’s 4th District.

Still, the Red to Blue priority list of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — which has high hopes of flipping seats in the Hudson Valley — does not yet include D’Esposito’s seat as a target.

Joseph G. Cairo Jr., the Nassau County Republican Committee chair, did not seem concerned that Pilip’s loss would bleed into other suburban districts.

“We are confident that our campaigns will continue our overwhelming record of success, based upon the issues that voters care about,” said Cairo, who has been credited with recent Republican wins on the island.

Matt Capp, a spokesperson for D’Esposito, echoed that assessment and brushed off the idea that Gillen could capitalize on Democratic momentum. D’Esposito’s “unique fusion of retail politics with bipartisan legislating is a winning strategy,” Capp said.

Democrats have pinned their hopes for 2024 on issues of interest to liberals, including keeping abortion legal — a strategy that helped the party secure a Senate majority in 2022 and has kept the House majority within striking distance.

In the Suozzi race, House Majority PAC, a Democratic super political action committee, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an ad that characterized Pilip as anti-abortion, using her own words: “I am pro-life.”

The message seemed to resonate among some voters.

“No one should tell us what to do for our bodies,” said Jennifer Trested, 54, a music teacher from Mineola who voted for Suozzi in part because she believed Pilip would move to restrict women’s access to abortion. “My friends and I have been talking about this. We can’t believe our kids will have less rights than we do.”

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