One on one with Robert Zimmerman, 2022 election opponent of Rep. George Santos

By Alexander Mousa, Co-Editor-In-Chief

On Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, voters across the United States headed to the polls to vote in the midterm elections. Some states had Governors elections and/or elections for the U.S. Senate. However, all 435 districts in the U.S. House of Representatives held elections for the two year term from Jan. 3, 2023 to Jan. 3, 2025. 

Due to the population shifts from the 2010 Census to the 2020 Census, states had to redraw their congressional district maps to match the populations. New York’s third congressional district, home to the Post campus, was redistricted, making it become one of the most competitive in the nation. The old third district, which also included Post, was represented by Democrat Tom Suozzi, who retired in 2022.

The election in November was between Republican George Santos and Democrat Robert Zimmerman. Both men campaigned with TV ads, mail flyers and countless lawn signs across the district. When all votes were counted, Santos was deemed the winner receiving 52 percent of the vote, compared to Zimmerman’s 46 percent.

Zimmerman is a Long Island native. He grew up in Great Neck, and now, along with his business partners, operates a business, ZE Creative Communications, in his hometown. 

“We formed [the business] back in 1988, and it’s a strategic communications firm that’s evolved over the years. It started in my apartment at the time, I was living in Jericho, now we are based in Great Neck. I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished. We have a diversity of clients throughout the Tri-State area…We have engaged in very creative activities that I think have been very defining as the industry evolves,” he said.

Throughout his time as a child, before becoming a small-business owner, Zimmerman dealt with personal struggles of his own. He describes his childhood as a young closeted gay man as “isolating,” and told his story about how an adult he confided in about his sexuality suggested he receive conversion therapy. 

“Growing up as I did in Long Island in the seventies, and coming of age in the mid to late seventies, as a gay kid, it was a very isolating time. Fortunately it’s different now, at least here. In other parts of the country it’s not all that different.The isolation, the bigotry, the prejudice, those are all very real, and the sense of intimidation is very real,” he said. “When I started coming of age, I asked someone I trusted, a retired educator, questions I was having about my life and my sexual orientation, and he said to me ‘there are doctors who can make you feel better, and get you healthy.’” 

Zimmerman became an intern for his congressman at the time, Rep. Lester Wolff (D-N.Y.), and learned firsthand the causes and policies that members of Congress focus on in their day to day job. 

“I saw how relevant government can be for people’s lives…that doesn’t mean big government, but government that is effective,” he said.

Zimmerman first ran for Congress when he was 27-years-old. The race was unsuccessful, which he attributes to Nassau county having a more Republican-friendly voting history at the time. He then had two unsuccessful bids for the New York State Legislature.

“Nassau county was even more Republican then than it is now, and it was a tough race, I didn’t make it for sure. I tried to run for state legislature, those were closer races, but I took it as a mandate to go into the private sector,” he affirmed.

After decades of working in the private sector, Zimmerman decided to make a candidacy for the third district in 2022. He faced four Democrats in the primary, and won the nomination with a little over 35 percent of the vote.

When running for the seat in 2022, Zimmerman reflected on how the hotly contested 2022 New York Governor’s race affected the election. 

“The biggest issue we faced in this election had nothing to do with running for Congress, and that was the greatest frustration. This was an election year defined by the Governor’s race,” he said. 

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) won the Governor’s race, but by a much smaller margin than former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) won the last one by in 2018, leading many political pundits to conclude that there was a coattail effect from Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), Hochul’s challenger, down to the Republican congressional candidates across the state.

Zeldin won the new third district by 13 points, while President Biden (D) carried it by 11 points in 2020, solidifying the district’s status as a swing district.

Zimmerman has focused on political issues throughout his adult life, including gun safety, protecting the Long Island sound and protecting reproductive freedom.

“I always held those issues very important to me. Standing up for reproductive freedom, gun safety, a safe and secure Israel [and] standing up for small business opportunities, as so many businesses face today,” he said. 

Santos ran his campaign boasting about his NYU education, his work at CitiGroup and Goldman Sachs and his Jewish heritage, all of which turned out to be lies.

After winning the election, many news outlets began to report that Santos lied about much of his life in order to get elected. 

“It’s interesting, the few times I was with him, you spent 10 minutes with the guy you knew nothing added up. This was not a master criminal, this is a sociopath. He only debated me twice, he refused to show up to any other debates. He wouldn’t appear in front of any editorial boards. His whole strategy was just to try to avoid public attention and just focus on working the Republican base and praying for a landslide,” he said.

One of the things Zimmerman campaigned on was calling out Santos for his role in spreading the narrative that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump (R), among other things.

“Despite his lying about it, George Santos was an active supporter of the insurrection movement. He was literally on video tape saying he wrote a check to get the insurrectionists out of jail after they assaulted police officers. Despite the fact that he lied about it, he was for a national ban on abortion. He literally compared abortion to slavery and said women would use rape as an excuse to get an abortion,” he added.

Zimmerman says that he wishes that his campaign had more information, and the time and resources to focus on Santos’ lies during the campaign. After a five-person Democratic primary, Zimmerman said that his campaign had “no money” to use in the general election against Santos, and had to fundraise again.

One lie that Santos told that shocked many in the district and around the country was lying about being Jewish. He said that his grandparents fled Ukraine from persecution, and then survived the Holocaust. The Forward reported that his grandparents were actually born in Brazil, and never lived in Europe during the Holocaust. Santos later said that he claimed to be “Jew-ish” and not fully Jewish. However, in a campaign letter that he sent out, he described himself as a “proud American Jew.” 

The third district has a Jewish population of 13 percent, and many people, including Zimmerman, feel that he lied about being Jewish to get voters in the district to support him. 

After numerous calls to resign from Congress, Santos has stayed. He has said that he will not run for re-election, but his term has almost two of the full two years to go. Zimmerman said that he is not focusing on the next election right now, but he has been focusing on the present. 

“Whatever I can do to overturn this fraud, try to restore faith and trust in our democracy, I’m committed to doing. [We are] building a bi-partisan coalition, and we are on our way to doing that, keeping the public pressure on through speeches, through petitions, through rallies, to make sure not just that George Santos is forced to resign, but making it clear that those Republicans, in Washington and locally, who support him are accomplices to the crime and that we’re gonna call them out for being accomplices to the crime,” he said.

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.) of the neighboring fourth district has called on Santos to resign, along with Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman (R-N.Y.), the Nassau County Republican Party and many other Republicans. 

In the meanwhile, it is uncertain if voters will be heading to the polls for a special election. Zimmerman feels that Santos will hurt Republicans’ image and they will eventually force him out.