Six Democratic candidates are competing to be the nominee to unseat the incumbent Republican, Mike Lawler, for New York 17th’s Congressional District. On June 23, New York voters will turn out to decide which Democrat will challenge him for his seat.
Lawler’s seat is vulnerable to being flipped by Democrats this year, according to Cook Political Report, which rated the race a toss-up. President Donald Trump went to campaign for Lawler in Rockland County on May 22, where he railed against Democratic policies.
Courier New York interviewed the two Democratic candidates leading in the polls: Beth Davidson and Cait Conley. Davidson, who lives in Nyack, is a Rockland County legislator for District 10. Conley lives in Ossining and served 16 years as an active duty Army officer, mostly in Special Operations and also worked as the director of counterterrorism on the National Security Council and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), where she headed up the security mission for the 2024 election.
Davidson says she hasn’t taken any corporate PAC money, including American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) money. Cait Conley said she also does not take corporate PAC or AIPAC donations.
Why they’re running
Conley said, “Watching what Donald Trump, enabled by this [Republican – majority] Congress, has done to our country, our institutions and our future, that was my call to serve.”
She added, “It breaks my heart that today, I truly believe that the greatest threat to our country and to our future is happening within our borders.”
Conley said Lawler never pushes back against the president and voted in line with Trump’s priorities, including for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Lawler came under heat at a town hall last year for his vote, with one veteran telling Lawler that the effects of the Medicaid provisions of the bill were “evil.”
“New York’s 17th deserves to have a representative that is loyal only to the people of this district and not just Donald Trump and his agenda,” she said.
Davidson said her work as a county legislator gives her a “front-row seat” to the impact of Trump’s policies, such as healthcare workers worrying about losing their jobs, greater barriers to reproductive rights, or immigrants fearing that they will be separated from their families. She also cited the affordability crisis so many Americans have spoken of ahead of the midterms.
What they’ll do about the affordability crisis
A May 2025 report from Democratic members of the Joint Economic Committee estimated that 30,600 New Yorkers in the district would lose Affordable Care Act or Medicaid healthcare coverage as a result of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA) which cuts funding for the Affordable Care Act premium subsidies and for Medicaid, in order to give tax cuts to wealthy people and corporations.
More than 300,000 New York households could lose all or some of their SNAP benefits, which help people afford food, because of OBBA..
OBBA also included a first-time federal program for school vouchers. School voucher programs have proven to pull money out of public school systems while subsidizing higher income families to send their children to private school.
If Democrats get the majority in Congress in the midterms, Davidson said, “We can take back the power of the purse and reverse cuts to healthcare and SNAP.”
She said it’s also necessary to repeal the $40,000 state and local tax deduction cap, otherwise known as SALT. OBBA increased the deduction to $40,000 for taxpayers making under $600,000.
“Voters are telling me that gas is off the charts. I know it is—up to $4.89 at the gas station right across from my house. So as a Rockland County legislator, I stepped up to offer a real-time solution. I called the chair of my legislature and said, ‘We have to do a gas tax holiday,’” Davidson said.
The cap on sales tax on gas starts on June 1 and will save about $1.60 in gas for each fill-up for gas priced at $5 per gallon.
Conley said that to make housing more affordable, she wants to create an American Public Service Home Loan Program, similar to the VA loan program for soldiers.
“It’s not a handout. It’s a federal guarantee to your private bank for up to 25% of your mortgage. It allows your bank to give you a competitive interest rate on your mortgage without you putting 20% down,” she said. “It would be open after 10 years of public service to teachers, nurses and first responders.”
“This administration, instead of solving problems or making it easier for families to get by, are literally pouring fuel on the affordability crisis!” Conley said. “It’s only harder for families to make ends meet.”
Positions on the Iran war and Israel’s war in Gaza
Conley and Davidson both oppose the war in Iran. Lawler issued a statement of full-throated support of Trump’s war in Iran in February. Since then, he has faced significant blowback for his position from constituents.
Conley said Trump and members of Congress are behaving with “recklessness.”
“As someone who has been to war, the last thing you ever want to see is another generation of America’s children to go to war,” she said.
Conley said the lack of a clear plan going in disturbed her. Now she says everyone is paying at the pump, since Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz.
“How they’ve conducted this war where we woke up one Saturday to us being at war without a plan, a clear exit strategy, without clear military and political objectives, without congressional authorized use of military support and without the support of the American people, we’ve seen this mistake played out before,” she added.
Davidson said voters tell her that the war is hurting the place of the US on the world stage and making the U.S. look “weak.”
“And by Donald Trump making statements like he’s going to wipe a civilization off the planet…makes us look deeply unserious,” she said.
She said the war is also serving as a distraction from the affordability crisis and his policies’ impact on families, such as cuts in healthcare and SNAP.
The two candidates also spoke about the Israel-Hamas war. Although there has been a ceasefire agreement, Israeli attacks continue, resulting in hundreds of deaths, and conditions in Gaza are still dire.
“We have to get to a place where we are focused on peace and reconstruction and security and peace going forward, to a two-state solution where there is security and sovereignty on both sides,” Conley said. “We’re going to need a third-party peacekeeping force to come in and ensure stability. Once peace persists we’re going to need to invest in the reconstruction of Gaza and help them recover from this.”
Davidson said she strongly supports providing Israel with the resources it needs to defend its citizens, including military assistance and security cooperation and that she supports a two-state solution that enables a future of peace, dignity and self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians.
The candidates’ stance on Trump’s war on immigrants
Davidson said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity is a “huge issue” all over the district.
She said that at a March No Kings rally, she noticed that “every other sign was about ICE.”
“It’s the first thing we’ve seen young people organize around in this campaign… it turns out young people really don’t like seeing their friends’ parents and grandparents or any family members disappeared,” she said.
Davidson introduced the Safety & Dignity Act in Rockland County, which she said would restrict how county employees interact with ICE agents on civil matters and allow county employees to cooperate with ICE investigating federal crimes and terrorism.”
Lawler accused Davidson and Democrats of trying to turn Rockland into a “sanctuary county.”
Davidson said she supports comprehensive immigration reform, a path to citizenship for “dreamers” or undocumented immigrants brought to the US as kids, and streamlining the immigration processing system.
Conley also condemned the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by immigration officials earlier this year.
“We have a government that watched as federal agents on American streets attacked and killed the very people they’re sworn to serve and protect,” she said.
“Mike Lawler wrote an op-ed calling it a bi-partisan policy failure. That’s not what this was,” Conley said. “This was Trump weaponizing the executive branch to achieve fear and intimidation of political opposition, and failure to hold those who violate the law, while doing his bidding, to hold them accountable.”
On her website, Conley said she supports body cameras and visible IDs for ICE agents, revoking 287(g) agreements with police, and modernizing the immigration system to cut backlogs and expedite asylum claims.
Accountability for the Trump administration
Davidson and Conley also told Courier New York how they would hold the Trump administration accountable if elected to Congress. Davidson wants to prioritize congressional investigations into how prepared the US is for another pandemic and who is influencing the Health and Human Services Department’s “junk science” policy changes.
She said she also wants to investigate the Department of Homeland Security but did not go into further detail. Conley agreed that the conduct of ICE agents should be investigated and that the FBI and Department of Justice should be investigated for the weaponization of the government against political opposition. She also said there should be more investigation into the Epstein files.
Davidson and Conley both say they also feel strongly about corruption and the weaponization of government against political opponents that they have seen in the Trump administration. Mike Lawler has defended the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund.
“This is a whole new level of the corruption that we are seeing play out with this administration,” Conley said. “And corruption is something the American people won’t stand for, can’t stand on either side of the aisle. “
Davidson said, “It’s $1.8 billion to further weaponize the Dept of Justice while at the same time cutting funding for healthcare and SNAP benefits.”
Polling shows that Democrats are eager to see their leaders advocate for their values. On voting rights, 55% of Democratic voters want their leaders to “fight for their values,” compared to 45% of Independents and 48% of Republicans, according to Lake Research Partners’ 2024 polling.
“We are going to have to continue to fight to ensure and protect our institutions. Democracy does not defend itself, we have to meet this moment and do that,” Conley said.
Davidson said, “What I’ve heard from voters over and over is that they want Democrats to stand up and fight. What distinguishes me from the rest of the field is that it’s not enough just to fight, you have to know how to win.”
