Rep. Mike Lawler doesn't shy from the red label in a blue district

CONGERS, N.Y. — New York Rep. Mike Lawler will often tout in interviews that he was ranked the fourth-most bipartisan member of the House.

“Folks who voted for Joe Biden in 2020, folks who may vote for Kamala Harris now, as well as folks who are voting for Trump, because I think they recognize me as somebody who has been rated the fourth-most bipartisan member of Congress, who’s been praised by both Biden and Trump, that I’m somebody who gets things done on behalf of the district,” he told Roll Call in an interview at a campaign stop last week.

The comment is part of how the freshman lawmaker — who two years ago ousted a member of Democratic leadership, flipping a seat that President Joe Biden would have in 2020 won by 10 percentage points over Donald Trump — seeks to show he is crossing the aisle. He’s counting on his reputation as a moderate Republican to power him to a second term in a blue district, but he’s not necessarily leaning away from being a member of the GOP.

On Friday, Lawler hosted a “Back the Blue” rally here, attracting a crowd of first-responders and their families. Lawler, who emceed the event featuring local Republican candidates and officials, highlighted the significance his race and other New York races will play in determining which party controls the House.

“Four years ago, nobody believed New York would have a voice on what happens in Washington, D.C. But it does, and it does because the disastrous policies that have been enacted here in New York have made us less safe, less prosperous and less free,” Lawler told the crowd.

But while Lawler will have to convince supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris to split their ticket to hold onto his seat, he isn’t backing away from his Republican credentials, casting his race as crucial for Republicans to keep control of the House.

Majority rules

“If we win my seat, we keep control of Congress,” he said.

During the rally Friday, he slammed New York’s cashless bail policy as “the single stupidest piece of legislation that was ever enacted into law anywhere in the United States,” and criticized the state legislature for subjecting law enforcement officials to freedom of information laws but exempting themselves.

Lawler’s not alone in his focus on crime. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC with ties to House Republican leadership, has spent $5.6 million on the race so far, highlighting in ads old comments from Lawler’s opponent, former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones, calling to “end mass incarceration and defund the police.” The CLF ads tie Jones, who served one term in Congress representing part of the 17th District before redistricting shuffled his political path, to fellow New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the so-called Squad who’s known for her progressive views.

Jones said he never voted to cut law enforcement funding while in Congress between 2021 and 2023, but says Lawler has taken such votes. In an interview, he said he regretted using the words, and actually supported hiring more social workers and mental health first-responders to aid police officers.

“Obviously they’re making a big deal of the ‘defund the police’ comments,” he said in an interview. “When I was in Congress, I always voted to fund the police.”

Still, Jones is pushing back on the comments in a new ad seeking to bolster his credentials on safety and support for law enforcement.

“Lawler is trying to fool you by highlighting something dumb I said when I was younger,” Jones says in the spot.

Shifting seats, fortunes

Jones first ran for Congress in 2020, easily winning the race for the then-17th District. But when redistricting ahead of the 2022 midterms caused the state to lose a seat, then-Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney said he would run in the 17th District and Jones moved to Brooklyn and ran in a crowded Democratic primary for the 10th District, rather than challenge another incumbent Democrat in the Hudson Valley.

Now back in the district where he grew up, Jones describes himself as a “pragmatic progressive.” Like Lawler, he argues the seat is crucial for either party to win the majority and says he can point to a “track record of actually delivering for these communities that helped raise me.” He’s trying to hit Lawler on issues that are stronger for Democrats, like reproductive rights.

“Of course he would be a reliable vote for a national abortion ban because he is sincerely extreme on this subject,” Jones said in a debate between the two last week.

Lawler has said that while he is anti-abortion, he would not vote for a national abortion ban and supports exemptions in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the life of the mother.

Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race as Tilt Republican. There’s been little public polling on the race, which is the case in most House races, but an Emerson College/Pix11/The Hill poll taken between Oct. 1 and 3 of 630 likely voters found Lawler leading, 45 percent to 44 percent, within the poll’s 3.8 percent “credibility interval,” which is described as “similar to a poll’s margin of error.”

Jones ended the third quarter with $2.4 million on hand, while Lawler had $1.9 million available.

Democrats in the district are also working to ensure that Jones doesn’t lose crucial votes to a candidate on the ballot under the Working Families Party ballot line. This year Anthony Frascone, a conservative, won the party’s primary, and now the party is working to convince its voters to support Jones. The Emerson poll earlier this month had Frascone at 3 percent.

“In order to prevent the Lawler and associates from succeeding in their attempt to deceive voters, NY-WFP has put together a robust program to make sure that Working Families-aligned voters in NY-17 understand that the person appearing on the WFP line is a MAGA plant, not a Working Families Party champion, and to encourage voters to cast their votes on the Democrat line instead,” the Working Families Party wrote in a memo this week.

House Majority PAC, a super PAC with ties to House Democratic leadership, released an ad this week hitting Lawler on funding for Social Security and Medicare, a topic that Lawler has also released his own ad on. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has also waded into the race, releasing an ad this month featuring Trump calling Lawler “spectacular’ and saying he wants to ban “nearly every abortion in New York.”

Lawler said in an interview that he’s been able to effectively convince voters in the district that he’ll work with both parties, and that they don’t buy into the idea that he’ll be a vote for the MAGA Republican agenda.

“I don’t think people really waste their time on that argument,” he said. “I think they’re more focused on the contrast between me and my opponent.”

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