MID-HUDSON – Cait Conley easily won the Democratic primary in the 17th Congressional District on Tuesday, setting up a showdown in November’s general election with Republican incumbent Mike Lawler.
The battle for the 17th is expected to be one of the most competitive congressional races in the country, and the seat is coveted by Democrats. The district includes all of Rockland and Putnam counties, as well as parts of Westchester and Dutchess counties.
Conley, a West Point graduate and former national security staffer to President Joe Biden, and Lawler continued to trade barbs after her win.
“Mike Lawler has had four years to fight for this district,” said Conley, who served in the U.S. Army. “But instead, he has put his own political career over our communities, chosen corruption over service, and voted 100 percent of the time with a MAGA agenda that has gutted our healthcare, jacked up costs, and undermined our democracy and freedoms. I didn’t serve this country to watch it get sold out by a career politician who would rather protect his party than his constituents.”
Lawler responded by challenging Conley to six televised debates.
“Without the Beltway handlers who parachuted her into this district from Virginia, there to script her, I look forward to exposing Cait’s hypocrisy of attacking ICE while getting paid handsomely by AI and big tech companies that do business with ICE,” Lawler said. “Overly scripted soundbites and hyper-partisan name-calling backed by millions of dollars from Washington, D.C., party bosses might win a primary against underfunded local challengers, but it’s not going to win the nation’s most-watched congressional race against someone, like me, with a proven bipartisan record of delivering for this district during both the Biden and Trump administrations and standing up to my own party again and again along the way.”
Five Democrats were vying for the party’s nomination to compete against Lawler in November, but Conley, 41, easily won the primary with 48.6 percent of the vote (17,429 votes) as of 11 p.m. Tuesday. Rockland County Legislator Beth Davidson was second with 32.2 percent (11,558 votes), followed by Effie Phillips-Staley with 15.8 percent (5,654 votes), John Cappello with 1.8 percent (641 votes) and Mike Sacks with 1.5 percent (550 votes).
Lawler was one of just three incumbent House Republicans, alongside Don Bacon and Brian Fitzpatrick, to win reelection in districts carried by former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. President Donald Trump won Rockland County in the 2024 election. The district has approximately 75,000 more Democrats than Republicans.
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