Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) is back in office to the pleasure of centrist Democrats while others, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), have raised a red flag to his stance on immigration.

Suozzi won the special election for New York’s 3rd District, his former district, on Tuesday. He had been elected to three terms and left in 2022 for an unsuccessful gubernatorial run.

Suozzi’s exit in 2022 allowed George Santos to win — a Republican who was ultimately removed from Congress last year. While Suozzi’s win means that the Democratic members have 213 representatives in the House now, his campaign’s immigration talking point hasn’t been approved by all of his fellow members.

Throughout the campaign, Suozzi referred to the influx of migrants attempting to cross the border illegally as an “invasion” and claimed Immigration and Customs Enforcement was vital for the country’s national security. His comments came while New York City, which is a neighbor to Suozzi’s district, is bombarded with immigrants. Mayor Eric Adams reported over 157,000 immigrants have arrived in New York City since last year, including the over 37,800 immigrants sent by Texas since August 2022, according to the most recent press release from Gov. Greg Abbott’s office.

“Democrats should learn a lesson from NY-03,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT.) wrote in a memo Wednesday to fellow Democrats. “Quite simply, we risk losing the 2024 election if we do not seize this opportunity to go on offense on the issue of the border and turn the tables on Republicans.”

“We need to be very careful. You’re never going to out-Republican a Republican,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told Politico. “I actually don’t think that it’s necessarily the playbook that would apply to the rest of the country.”

Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) seemingly agreed with Ocasio-Cortez, implying Suozzi seemingly won on a Republican talking point.

“Their candidate ran like a Republican,” Johnson said of Suozzi. “He sounded like a Republican, talking about the border and immigration, because everybody knows that the top issue that is on the concern, on the hearts, and minds of everybody.”

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Still, other Democratic candidates watched Suozzi’s campaign closely, and appear to take Murphy’s advice to heart. Among them is Kyle Hill, a candidate running to replace Rep. Nicholas LaLota (R-NY) in New York’s 1st District.

“Congratulations Tom Suozzi and everyone who worked to win back NY-03. We’re gonna take this same energy and excitement and flip NY-01 this November,” Hill wrote on X.