Fresh off a thumping special election victory in New York, Democrats are rapidly mobilizing around a high-risk, high-reward strategy to flip the script on their biggest vulnerability: the border.

Why it matters: Even Republicans acknowledge that Democrat Tom Suozzi's embrace of stricter border policy — and his attacks on Republicans for rejecting the Senate's bipartisan border bill — contributed to his eight-point victory.

• "He sounded like a Republican talking about the border," House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said at a press conference Wednesday, in which he urged the GOP not to "panic" about its chances of losing the House in November.
• Suozzi "basically ran away from what has been the Democratic agenda for the last two years," said Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.).

Zoom in: President Biden has vowed to remind voters "every day between now and November" that former President Trump and his GOP allies blew up the bipartisan border deal.

• Democrats believe Suozzi's victory provided early vindication of that message.

What they're saying: "The GOP has presented Democrats with a unique, unprecedented opening to go on the offensive on border security," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Democrats' lead border negotiator, argued in a memo Wednesday morning.

• House Democrats' main super PAC echoed that sentiment in its own post-election memo, writing: "It is imperative for Democrats to take the fight to Republicans and hammer them."
• The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee launched a new ad Wednesday morning slamming Republicans for ditching "the toughest border bill in a generation."
• "Tom Suozzi put support for the bipartisan border legislation — and congressional Republicans' killing of it for politics — at the forefront of his case. The results are unmistakable," said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates in a statement.

Zoom out: The bipartisan border deal would have allowed the hiring of thousands of immigration officials and border agents, invested billions in deportation and detention and added barriers to asylum.

• Republicans' role in tanking that legislation could serve as fodder for Democratic ads as the general election heats up.

The other side: The strategy comes with immense risks — namely that Biden's border policies are cited in polls as the No. 1 factor dragging down his approval rating, and that Suozzi spent much of his campaign distancing himself from the president.

• Reversing three years of voter perceptions on the border crisis will be a massive challenge for Democrats, especially given the divisions on immigration that persist within the party.
• "The lesson has to be the right lesson," Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) told Axios.
• The correct message, she argued, is not to "say 'I'm going to shut down the border on day one,' it is: 'Immigrants are a critical part of our fabric, Americans want an orderly process with security at the border, and, by the way, Republicans have voted against this every single time.'"

The backdrop: Suozzi is on track to beat Republican Mazi Melesa Pilip by a healthy margin in the race to succeed expelled Republican Rep. George Santos.

• The election result represented a flip from 2022, when Santos won the seat by eight percentage points. Biden also won it by eight points in 2020.
• There are plenty of other factors besides border messaging that may have contributed to Suozzi's victory — including the "scandal penalty" the GOP likely paid for Santos' expulsion.

The big picture: The new strategy is a remarkable shift for post-Trump Democrats who have largely avoided the topic of immigration.

• Biden's White House has even pushed against its top immigration officials publicly discussing the issue in the past, fearful of highlighting a political vulnerability, as Axios reported.
• "Democrats have been unnecessarily stuck in a defensive crouch on the issue of border security and immigration," Murphy wrote in the memo. "Too many of our leaders retreat to defending the existing system."
• After years of record numbers of illegal crossings at the border and an onslaught of political attacks from the right, Democrats seem ready to own the importance of border security.