NEW CITY, New York — Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) is earning back-slapping bravos while also taking it on the chin in his Lower Hudson Valley district.
“Obviously,” he told The Epoch Times between afternoon votes on Oct. 26, “people are frustrated.”
Indeed. A stranger asking questions about politics won’t make fast friends in Mr. Lawler’s New York Congressional District 17 (CD 17), which spans both sides of the river north of New York City and will be among the nation’s most hotly contested 2024 House races.
He’s in a tight spot: A first-term Congressman in his freshman year does not normally become a national figure by calling out members of his own party for playing politics while failing to pass a budget on time.
But these are not normal times, and Mr. Lawler, one of 18 House reps elected in 2022 in districts Democrat President Joe Biden won in 2020, is not a normal “politician;” he needs cross-party and independent votes to be reelected in 2024.
“I like Mike,” Tasha Greene said as she loaded groceries into her car in a Shop-Rite parking lot in New City in Rockland County, noting she’s been a registered Democrat for 24 years.
“He’s the only Republican I ever voted for,” she added. “But I’m not so sure I can do that again (in 2024). You see what they’re doing? Some of these (Republicans) just want to wreck things.”
“Someone needs to primary him,” David Conley of Jefferson Valley said as he enjoyed an abnormally warm late-October day in Cold Spring on the river, its mountain ramparts’ oak forests aglow in yellow and orange.
“A lot of guys I know say he’s just another RINO,” Conley continued. “I’d like to see a real conservative primary him—I think one could win in this district.”
“We’re very happy with Congressman Lawler,” Putnam County Republican Committee Chair Andres Gil told The Epoch Times.
“He supports Trump, so support him,” Kevin Fogerty said while grabbing a coffee at a Peekskill deli. “God bless him, and God bless President Trump and the ground he walks on.”
Mr. Lawler upset House Democrats’ campaign committee chair Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) in 2022 by 1,820 votes—less than 1 percent.
Democrats want the seat back. While he does not, as yet, face a primary challenger, former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) and Katonah-Lewisboro School Board member Liz Gereghty, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s sister, are among Democrats seeking the nod to take him on next November.
Mr. Lawler is one of five midterm-elected Republican House reps from New York seeking 2024 re-elections in suburban swing districts that Democrats are aggressively targeting to flip.
Those battle lines are stark in three Hudson Valley districts rated as 2024 “tossups”—CD 18, held by Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.); CD 19, represented by Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.), who flipped a blue seat red by 1.5 percent of the 2022 vote; and CD 17.
‘Get Back To Work’
Mr. Lawler said he’s not thinking about his 2024 campaign, although he has traded barbs with Mr. Jones on social media. He’s thinking about passing a budget, he said.”The bottom line: People want us to get back to work on securing the border and cutting spending and addressing the challenges we’re seeing abroad,” he said. “We have a lot of work ahead of us.”
And not much time to do it. The 45-day continuing resolution adopted in late September to fund the government expires Nov. 17—three weeks from now.
Mr. Lawler said the plan “is to go home and return Wednesday, Nov. 1 and be in session for two weeks” to adopt the Fiscal Year 2024 budget.
CD 17 spans all of Rockland and Putnam counties, northern Westchester County and southern Dutchess County.
The district is “primarily suburban,” with 80 percent of its voters in Rockland and Westchester counties, he said, calling it “a relatively compact district” of “mostly single-family homes.”
Mr. Lawler said 19 percent of CD 17 voters are Latino, and the district has significant Irish, Haitian, and Jewish populations, including many Orthodox Jewish voters in Rockland County.
Fifty percent of CD 17 residents are police officers and firemen—many who commute into New York City—and veterans.
“It’s Blue collar, working-class,” Mr. Lawler said, although roughly half CD 17 voters have college degrees.
“It’s a good mix of folks who work hard,” he said, and they expect their elected officials to do so also.
It’s been hard work for Mr. Lawler, who emerged as a spokesman of sorts for moderate House Republicans during three weeks of chaos that ended Oct. 25 when Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) was elected Speaker of the House.
Mr. Lawler supported former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and opposed Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) Speaker bid. When he voted for Mr. Johnson, New York Democrats on the House floor waved at him mouthing “bye-bye.”
But it’s a long way from now to November 2024. For many, it can’t come soon enough.
At the Mahopac American Legion, the TV was fixed on Fox News and all applauded when it was announced Republicans had finally elected a Speaker.
They spotted Mr. Lawler standing behind Mr. Johnson as he addressed the media.
“Is that our guy?” asked one, who said he never gives his name to “crooked reporters,” even one who is a fellow veteran.
Indeed it was their guy, they all agreed. A good man, they all concurred, even though he’s not a veteran.
Then the Golf Channel was on.
“The new Speaker spoke too much,” the bartender said.
