Democratic Congressional candidates debate to face Mike Lawler
Democrats Kate Conley, Beth Davidson, and Effie Phillips Staley debated in their primary races against Republican Rep. Mike Lawler.
Democrats have been crisscrossing New York City’s northern suburbs for more than a year, seeking support to challenge Republican Rep. Mike Lawler in one of the nation’s most important House races.
Five candidates will face off in the June 23 primary for New York’s 17th Congressional District. The district is a swath of the Hudson Valley that will be up for election in November and is critical to the fight for a majority in the House of Representatives. Whoever wins will surely face a hard-fought and expensive race against a two-term incumbent in an unpredictable district with a political quilt of dark blue and dark red patches.
The voters on the court are diverse. The 17th District spans four counties on both sides of the Hudson River, and its topography ranges from the affluent, semirural areas of northern Westchester County, home to celebrities like Bill and Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart, to less affluent, densely populated areas such as Spring Valley, an immigrant hub in Rockland County.
Meet the Democratic candidates in the NY-17 House primary
The front-runners for fundraising, polling and endorsements are Rockland County Councilwoman Beth Davidson and Kate Conley, a veteran and former national security official in the Biden administration. A third Democrat, Effie Phillips Staley, has moved to the left, building her own support from progressive groups and voters and outpacing Davidson in the last two months.
Those who shared their ballots with them were former journalist Mike Sacks and Air Force veteran John Capello.
Lawler, a Republican who is running for office, defeated former Rep. Mondaire Jones by a six-point margin in the last election. But his first victory in 2022, when he defeated five-term Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney in a huge upset, was decided by just 1,820 votes, and Democrats are hoping this time they can unseat Lawler in more favorable conditions and give their party a House majority.
Mr. Lawler is widely considered a moderate and frequently touts the bipartisan nature of the bill and the high ratings it receives from neutral groups for its effectiveness. Most recently, he promoted his role in bipartisan housing legislation and working with Democrats to force a vote on a bill the House approved on June 9 to speed up union contracts.
His opponents paint him in deep MAGA red for standing by President Donald Trump on most issues, including his tariffs and the war he started alongside Israel against Iran.
Rather than distancing himself, Mr. Lawler drew closer by holding an early campaign rally with Mr. Trump in Rockland County in May, an event that galvanized Republicans and underscored the importance of this fall’s campaign for the 17th District.
At the rally, Mr. Lawler sought to counter his critics by questioning whether any of the Democrats seeking to challenge him would be able to put aside their differences with Mr. Trump and get anything done if elected.
“What a lot of people don’t realize is that if you want to accomplish something, you have to be in the arena,” he said. “You have to have a seat at the table. You have to act with integrity.”
Conley leads in latest poll, attracting Republican attacks
Davidson led the primary in two polls in February and April. But in the past two polls, Mr. Conley has had the upper hand. A Tavern Research poll released June 16 showed Mr. Conley leading Mr. Davidson 34% to 23%, with 13% supporting Phillips Staley and 28% of Democratic voters in the 17th District still undecided.
Conley also has the most campaign funds, with $940,000 on hand. Mr. Davidson held $414,000 as of June 3.
Just as nine days of early voting began on June 13, Conley became the latest target of attack ads linked to Republicans who used similar tactics to influence voters in the Democratic primary earlier this year. A newly formed super PAC spent $1.5 million on ads portraying Mr. Conley as complicit in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts through consulting with two technology companies.
The obvious motive is to hurt her standing with Democratic voters.
Mr. Davidson had made similar criticisms of Mr. Conley in one of the few heated battles in the primary. She accused Mr. Conley of working for a company that worked with Palantir, a data analytics company and federal contractor that has supported the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement efforts.
Conley counters that his job focuses only on public safety and has nothing to do with immigration. She set up her employment as a continuation of her 16-year career in the Army and the national security post she held for four years in Washington. This is the context on which her campaign is built.
Different shades of blue in the NY-17 Dem field
Mr. Conley and Mr. Davidson have received most of the support from elected officials and party leaders, with three of the four county Democratic Party chairs in the district supporting Mr. Conley and one supporting Mr. Davidson.
Davidson is more immersed in Democratic politics, having worked as a political consultant for years and running for a seat on the county council in 2023. Conley, a political newcomer who was registered as an independent before entering the race last year, cites that, along with his military service, as strengths that will help him win over critical independent voters in the general election.
Erin Covey, who analyzes House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, sees an advantage in the newbie Conley’s pitch for the general election. In an interview with USA TODAY Network, she pointed out that both of the Democrats Lawler defeated in the past two elections were politicians with backgrounds that Lawler could attack. Conley doesn’t allow that kind of opening.
“You can’t classify her as a career politician,” Covey said.
Phillips Staley is pitching herself as a grassroots candidate who can tap into disaffected voters and take bolder, more progressive positions than candidates backed by the party establishment.
Among the candidates, she has been the most critical of the Israeli government and an outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights, making her point by visiting the West Bank in February and posting videos of her trip. She also stands out by supporting the vision of Medicare for All and advocating for repealing and replacing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement rather than trying to reform it.
Orthodox voting bloc emerges as a potentially major factor
A major wildcard in both the primary and general election is Rockland County’s large Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish population, enough voters to easily sway the race if the various voting blocs work together. That happened in 2024, and well over 20,000 votes from that community went to Lawler.
What makes that uniformity of support unusual is that many of those voters actually registered as Democrats, even though they voted almost unanimously for Trump and Lawler that year. That puts Democrats who support Lawler in the unique position of helping choose his next opponent by voting in the June 23 primary.
Davidson argued he has the best chance of attracting Hasidic and Orthodox voters, both because of his Jewish faith and his strong political ties in Rockland. But some Democrats have expressed doubts that the community support from the primary will carry over to the November race against Lawler.
Yossi Gestetner, a politically active advocate for the community, told USA TODAY Network in May that voters in the community were not very interested in the Democratic primary and it was unlikely they would turn out in large numbers to vote. He also dismissed theories circulating at the time that Trump was holding a rally in Rockland in November to corral support for Lawler in the Hasidic and Orthodox communities.
“Mr. Lawler does not need Mr. Trump’s support to win the votes of the Orthodox community,” Mr. Gestetner said. “He’s won every single one of them, vote by vote, block by block.”
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and the USA TODAY Network. please contact him CMcKenna@usatodayco.com.
