Democrats are again angling for Rep. Mike Lawler’s House seat. Can he hold on in liberal New York?

HAVERSTRAW, N.Y. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler is considered one of the nation’s most vulnerable Republicans in this year’s midterm elections. It was the same story in his last election, too.

But in a political era where both parties are drifting further apart, he’s banking on New York voters still wanting a rare moderate voice in a polarized Washington. In fact, he thinks it’s helpful that he’s a Republican in an otherwise liberal state.

“Well, I think one thing to keep in mind is New York is controlled by Democrats,” he said in an interview. “Their policies are directly responsible for the high cost of living, the decline in the quality of life, the out of control pro-criminal policies that make people less safe. These are their policies.”

Lawler, who represents a lush and leafy section of the Hudson Valley, is trying to harness suburban anxiety over New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the surging progressive movement as he tries to beat the odds in a battleground district with many more registered Democrats than Republicans.

“Democrats, to me, have gone crazy,” said Frank Zambrano, a 70-year-old retired fire marshal who lives in Rockland County and said his kids went to school with Lawler. “Give me something in the middle.”

While Lawler’s foes try to tie him to President Donald Trump’s most inflammatory positions, he argues that he’s willing to push back on both sides. In a recent campaign video, Lawler showcased a clip of Trump jokingly using an expletive to describe how much of “a pain” the congressman was to push for expanding a critical tax deduction known as SALT, which benefits homeowners in more expensive states like New York.

It may be difficult, however, for Lawler to paint his Democratic opponent Cait Conley as a progressive in Mamdani’s mold.

A decorated combat veteran with degrees from Harvard and MIT, Conley is running as a pro-military moderate who can fight the president’s agenda and capture some of the outsider energy that has lifted Democrats elsewhere.

“I think that that fire, that drive, that desire for change, it’s not just contained to progressive voters,” she said in an interview. “People are sick of status quo politicians. They’re sick of the people who got us here.”

Lawler walks a Trump tightrope

Democrats want to claw back control of Congress by leveraging concerns over the U.S. war with Iran and an affordability crisis that’s hitting everything from food to fuel to housing.

Lawler has heard a lot of those concerns firsthand, since they have been shouted at him during raucous town halls he’s held in the district. He said it’s possible to back Trump but also not agree with him on everything.

At a recent campaign event, Lawler told reporters he didn’t support the president’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants, noting he shepherded bipartisan legislation in the House to extend the policy and argued Haitians make up a critical part of his district’s healthcare workers.

After the event, Lawler told The Associated Press: “When I agree with the president, I’m willing to say it. And when I disagree with him, I’m willing to say it.”

“When it comes to President Trump, number one, he’s the president of the United States, and the idea that you just say ‘I hate you, I refuse to work with you,’ you get nowhere. Where does that get you in terms of serving your constituents or your districts? Too many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have taken that posture and they’ve gotten nothing done,” he said.

Like other Democrats running this year, Conley has sought to play up her opponent’s relationship to Trump, painting the incumbent as too beholden to the president’s agenda on Iran, tariffs and cuts to the social safety net.

“Trump is throwing all the love on Lawler,” she said, mentioning her opponent’s recent rally in the district with the president. “Don’t tell me you stand up to him.”

Lawler’s opponent aims to fend off progressive label

Conley, a former counterterrorism director at the National Security Council under President Joe Biden, has tried to distance herself from some progressive positions that could damage her in the district as Lawler moves to lump her in with urban liberals.

She said she doesn’t want to defund the police, and she doesn’t use the term genocide to describe Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Instead, she argues voters are more concerned with the economy and “the corruption and greed” coming from the Trump administration. As Conley strolled through a Jewish music and arts festival in the district on a recent Sunday, one voter appeared to agree.

“We need to flip this Congress and fight the corruption,” Francine Goldstein, a 67-year-old retiree, said after greeting Conley at the event.

Lawler appeared to invite controversy recently by posting a picture of himself wearing a red jacket that he apparently previously used for a Michael Jackson costume in college.

A spokesperson for Lawler said the post — which included a caption that said “it’s a little snug, but it still fits!” — was intended as a joking reference to people saying his clothes were too tight in a recent campaign video.

But critics swiftly pointed out that Lawler had used blackface when he wore the jacket two decades ago, and the photos emerged during his last campaign. He apologized at the time and said the costume was meant to be “a genuine homage to one of my childhood idols.”

Shifting district lines have benefited Lawler

Lawler first won the seat in 2022 when he defeated former U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, then the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It was a major upset that came as Republicans flipped a handful of suburban New York House seats by gearing campaigns toward crime concerns.

In that race, Lawler was boosted, at least in part, after a bungled redistricting process by state Democrats resulted in a new court-ordered map that reshaped the seat.

Lawler then won a second term after defeating former U.S. Rep. Mondaire Jones by a wider margin. Jones held the seat before redistricting, but he struggled to adapt his progressive background to a new set of voters.

Lawler was victorious in the same election that the district supported former Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump. That year, Democrats were able to flip a few other battleground seats the party lost in the previous election, making Lawler’s victory even more vexing for Democrats.

That dynamic has made the district a priority of national Democrats and their campaign spending groups, which are expected to make a big play for the seat this fall.

“Everybody who thinks they know what’s going to happen in November I think is fooling themselves,” Lawler said. ”This is not like any normal midterm.”