Mike Lawler is a Republican congressman from Pearl River who represents New York’s 17th District, which covers Rockland and Putnam counties and parts of Westchester and Dutchess. A former state party official and political consultant, he unseated the head of House Democrats’ campaign arm in 2022 and is now in one of the closest House races in the country.
So who is Mike Lawler, what has he passed, and how often does he break with his party? The record runs through a presidential security law, a fight over the state and local tax deduction, a vote for the 2025 Republican tax law, a lost ballot challenge, and a Nov. 3 race against Democrat Cait Conley.
Quick Facts
- Party
- Republican (also on the Conservative line)
- Hometown
- Pearl River, N.Y.
- Date of Birth
- 1986 (exact date not confirmed in official sources reviewed)
- Current Position
- U.S. House of Representatives, New York's 17th District
- Background
- Former executive director, New York Republican State Committee; Assembly member; political consultant
- In Office Since
- January 2023
EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY
Lawler is a lifelong Hudson Valley resident, according to his House biography. He was class valedictorian at Manhattan College, where he earned degrees in accounting and finance. His father died of cancer, and the biography says their final conversation came five days before his death.
He lives in Pearl River with his wife, Doina, and their daughters, Julianna and Elizabeth. He co-chairs the Congressional Moldova Caucus. Congressional data list his birth year as 1986.
PARTY OPERATIVE AND CONSULTANT, 2009 TO 2019
After college Lawler went into Republican politics. He was special assistant to the chairman of the New York Republican State Committee from 2009 to 2011 and its executive director from 2011 to 2014, according to Patch. In 2014 he managed Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino’s campaign for governor.
He then advised Astorino in Westchester. In 2018 he co-founded a consulting firm, Checkmate Strategies, with Chris Russell, and became deputy town supervisor of Orangetown. In 2020 he described himself as a registered lobbyist, and his disclosure listed $150,000 to $250,000 in partner income, according to City & State.
THE ASSEMBLY, 2020 TO 2022
In 2020 Lawler challenged Democratic Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee, who had held the 97th District since 2007. He pledged to have the state take over Medicaid costs, repeal cashless bail, and back term limits. He won 29,936 to 27,359, a margin of 2,577 votes, according to certified 2020 results.
In Albany he was ranking member of the Governmental Operations Committee. In May 2022 he announced a run for Congress. “I believed New York State was headed in the wrong direction. We needed change and I believed that I had something to offer,” he said, according to the Rockland County Times.
The Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge over the Hudson River, which links Rockland and Westchester, two of the four counties in Lawler’s 17th District. (Photo: Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
That August he easily won a five-way Republican primary. In October City & State reported his campaigns had paid his own firm more than $200,000 since 2020. “There should be very tight restrictions on the use of campaign contributions,” said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group. A spokesman said Lawler was walled off from the firm’s profits.
On Nov. 8, 2022, Lawler beat Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, 143,550 to 141,730, a margin of 1,820 votes, according to certified 2022 results. “This is a very humbling experience, but it is also a responsibility,” he told the Examiner News.
THE FIRST TERM, 2023 TO 2024
On May 1, 2024, the House passed Lawler’s Antisemitism Awareness Act, H.R. 6090, 320 to 91. It would require the Education Department to use a set definition of antisemitism in civil rights cases. Rep. Jerry Nadler opposed it: “You could read it as saying that criticism of Israel is antisemitic,” according to the New Republic. It did not pass the Senate.
That June, Anthony Frascone, a former Republican, beat former Rep. Mondaire Jones for the Working Families Party line. A Jones spokeswoman blamed “Mike Lawler’s manipulation of the Working Families Party primary,” according to the Journal News. “The only politician who had a worse month than Joe Biden is Mondaire Jones,” said Lawler spokesman Chris Russell.
After the July 2024 attempt on Donald Trump’s life, Lawler and Democrat Ritchie Torres introduced H.R. 9106 to give major candidates the same Secret Service standards as a sitting president. It passed the House 405 to 0, according to the House Clerk, and became Public Law 118-91 on Oct. 1, 2024.
In October 2024 the New York Times reported that Lawler wore blackface to a 2006 college Halloween party, which he called a tribute to Michael Jackson saying it was “truly the sincerest form of flattery, a genuine homage to my musical hero since I was a little kid trying to moonwalk through my mom’s kitchen. The ugly practice of blackface was the furthest thing from my mind.”. On Nov. 5 he beat Jones 197,845 to 173,899, with Frascone taking 7,530 votes, according to certified 2024 results. He called cashless bail “the single stupidest piece of legislation.”
2024 vote share, upstate and Hudson Valley House members
LawlerDemocratic members
Each member’s share of the vote in the November 2024 general election. Lawler is the only Republican shown, and Kamala Harris narrowly carried his district in 2024. His own share rose from 50.3 percent in 2022 to about 52 percent in 2024. Sources: state Board of Elections; Ballotpedia.
THE SECOND TERM, 2025 TO 2026
At a May 2025 town hall in Somers, attendees were carried out as the crowd chanted “Shame!” That month he held out for a higher state and local tax deduction cap. “That is the deal, and I will not accept a penny less,” he said of a $40,000 cap in June.
On July 3 he voted for H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed 218 to 214, according to the House Clerk. On July 23, 2025, he decided not to run for governor and to seek reelection instead. Gov. Kathy Hochul called him “Donald Trump’s Good Boy,” according to NBC News.
In April 2026 a state judge rejected Lawler’s bid to knock Tarrytown village trustee Effie Phillips-Staley off the Democratic primary ballot. The judge found 501 signatures fraudulent but left her with 2,058 valid ones, more than the 1,250 needed, according to the court’s decision. The judge referred the forgeries to the four county district attorneys.
The hamlet of Mahopac in Putnam County, which lies entirely within Lawler’s 17th District. (Photo: johnaac, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
On June 23, Army veteran Cait Conley won the Democratic primary. “I sure as hell am not afraid of a lifelong political hack like Mike Lawler,” she said. In July Lawler disclosed a 2012 drunk-driving arrest, which ended in a plea to a reduced charge. “I share it because I hope someone else can learn from my mistake,” he told the Hudson Independent.
In August he refused on CNN to return $10,000 from a PAC linked to Rep. Max Miller, whose former wife has accused him of abuse. “There’s been nothing that has been corroborated here,” Lawler said, according to Mediaite. On Sept. 15 he voted against a resolution to pull U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran, which passed 220 to 204.
THE DISTRICT AND THE PARTY MATH
The 17th District had 215,388 active Democrats, 138,290 Republicans, and 144,171 unaffiliated voters out of 526,231 in February 2025, according to state Board of Elections enrollment figures. Kamala Harris carried it 49.9 percent to 49.3 percent in 2024, making it one of eight Republican-held seats she won.
Republicans held 219 House seats to 212 for Democrats in late July 2026, so seats like Lawler’s decide the majority. The Cook Political Report rated his race a toss-up this summer, and an Emerson College poll released Oct. 1 found Conley at 48 percent and Lawler at 46 percent. More than $40 million in ads had run by early October.
COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS
Lawler sits on the Financial Services Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee, where he chairs the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, according to his House biography. He also serves on Financial Services subcommittees on capital markets and on housing and insurance.
He co-chairs caucuses opposing New York City’s congestion toll and supporting Moldova, and is a leading member of the bipartisan SALT Caucus. His office says he introduced 58 bills in his first term, seven of which passed the House. In 2026 the House passed his Foreign Service Modernization Act, H.R. 9086, by voice vote.
WHY HE RAN AND WHAT HE BELIEVES
Lawler says he ran because New York had become unaffordable. “We have an affordability crisis,” he said after his 2024 win, according to City & State. “Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, it doesn’t matter, folks. We all want a few basic things in life,” he told supporters that night.
He presents himself as independent of Trump. “The truth is that the president and I don’t always agree, and that’s okay. After all, we’re both New Yorkers,” he said in September 2026. He cites breaks on Haitian immigrants’ protected status, Ukraine aid, and health insurance tax credits.
CAMPAIGN FINANCE
Lawler raised about $10 million for the 2026 cycle through Sept. 30 and had about $2.85 million on hand, according to FEC filings. About $3.78 million came from individuals, $2.39 million from political action committees, and $3.69 million in transfers from joint fundraising committees.
Conley had raised about $4.32 million and had $1.32 million on hand as of June 30, the latest report available, according to her FEC filings. Phillips-Staley had raised about $787,000 by June 30. A super PAC funded by Elon Musk is backing Lawler, and VoteVets spent $1 million for Conley in the primary.
2026 cycle fundraising through Sept. 30, Hudson Valley House members
LawlerDemocratic members
Total receipts for each member’s principal campaign committee for the 2026 cycle through Sept. 30, 2026, in millions of dollars. Source: Federal Election Commission.
CONTROVERSIES AND CRITICISM
Democrats say Lawler broke a promise on Medicaid by voting for H.R. 1, which adds work requirements. “Mike Lawler lied to us,” said Putnam County Democratic Chair Jen Colamonico, according to WAMC. “The objective is to help people get into the workforce ultimately,” Lawler said of the requirements in 2025.
In October 2026 City & State reported allegations that his staff berated Orthodox Jewish constituents and that an aide threatened to bring White House pressure on Putnam’s sheriff. Lawler said he had no knowledge of those actions. Conley calls him “an effective con artist.” From the right, the conservative site BizPac Review called a bipartisan immigration bill he backed a “mass amnesty bill.”
CLAIMS VERSUS THE RECORD
Lawler calls himself one of the most bipartisan members, citing a Lugar Center ranking of fourth in the House for 2023 and 2024. But CQ found he backed Trump’s agenda on 94 percent of 2025 votes, and he voted for H.R. 1 and against the Iran war powers resolution. On the tax deduction, he largely got the $40,000 cap he demanded.
His legislative record is real but narrow: one law of his own, the Secret Service bill, plus several Iran sanctions and other measures his office says were folded into larger packages. For other New York House members’ records, see PagPol’s profiles of George Latimer and Tim Kennedy.
The U.S. Post Office in Pearl River, the Orangetown hamlet where Lawler lives with his family. (Photo: Daniel Case, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
STATE COMPTROLLER AUDITS IN THE DISTRICT
An April 2025 comptroller East Ramapo review found the school district’s unassigned fund balance had grown to $31.3 million, or 9.2 percent of the next year’s spending, more than twice the 4 percent legal limit, and that its budget relied on $20.7 million in one-time money.
A September 2024 Putnam golf audit found 97 percent of the daily golf course settlement reports reviewed were inaccurate. The county had no records for its 2022 parks collections. Rockland County’s budgets are reviewed by the comptroller each year under its 2013 deficit law.
LOOKING AHEAD
Lawler faces Conley and Phillips-Staley on Nov. 3, 2026. “Cait is an unknown; she is not from this district,” he said in July. Conley has cast the race as a referendum on Trump: “Mike Lawler only votes one way, Donald Trump’s way,” she said on primary night. For more, visit PagPol’s Rockland County page or subscribe to the Rockland County newsletter.
