George Santos, the expelled former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, has officially dropped his return bid to Congress as an independent candidate.
Santos, the former Republican representing New York, announced he would be suspending his campaign as an independent for a return to the House representing Long Island.
As he wrote on social media:
“I don’t want to split the ticket and be responsible for handing the house to Dems. Staying in this race all but guarantees a victory for the Dems.”
During the 2022 midterm elections, Santos surprisingly won the election to represent the 3rd Congressional District in New York. He was part of a major red wave that occurred throughout New York that year that aided in giving the GOP a small majority in Congress’ lower chamber.
Not long after he entered Congress, though, his web of lies began to unravel.
While many of the most prominent leaders in New York’s GOP supported Santos at first, it was revealed that the freshman congressman ended up lying about his education, his experience in business and the religion of his family. There were many lies that he made, including that he was a competitive volleyball player in college.
In May of last year, Santos was facing a major ethics probe from the House on which he served. Then, things ramped up quickly, as he was arrested on federal fraud charges.
The Department of Justice initially accused Santos of bilking many of his political donors. Eventually, the criminal counts against him were expanded to 23 total charges.
Santos has pleaded not guilty to all of those charges.
In a statement that was released in October of last year, U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said:
“Santos is charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization.”
As of now, Santos’ trial is scheduled to start in September. The person who served as his campaign treasurer for the 2022 midterm elections, already pleaded guilty for his role in the case.
Santos’ legal troubles and scandals continued to mount for the rest of 2023, and more and more of his one-time political allies abandoned him. It finally reached a head when Congress took an official vote to expel him from the House, with a final vote of 311-114.
Santos was ultimately done in because many Republican in the House joined with their Democratic counterparts to kick Santos out of Congress.
Not long after the vote to expel him was official, Santos said he wouldn’t be gone for long. He announced plans to run for the Republican primary to represent the 1st Congressional District in New York, though he later shifted to be an independent candidate.
While his social media post announcing that he’d be suspending his campaign, Santos blasted the “abysmal” voting record of Republican incumbent Representative Nick LaLota.
LaLota was a major figure in getting Santos expelled from office.
