The race to the center: How suburban NY shows candidates trying to ‘out-moderate’ each other

ROCKLAND COUNTY, NEW YORK — In New York’s 17th Congressional District, candidates here insist they are centrists. Just don’t believe the lies from the other side.

GOP Rep. Mike Lawler, who first won the seat in 2022 by less than 3,000 votes, said he would not vote for a federal abortion ban, supports organized labor and opposes cuts to entitlement programs, all while keeping former President Donald Trump at arm’s length. long. Mondaire Jones, the former Democratic congressman he ran against, is said to be anti-Israel, wants to cut funding for the police and do progressive “squad” bidding, according to Lawler.

According to Jones, Lawler is unreliable on abortion, wants to raise the retirement age and is a pawn of hardliners like Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. Jones, meanwhile, said he supports additional funding for law enforcement and supports Israel, going as far as endorsing a winning primary challenger to a squad member who created a conspiracy theory about the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack.

Such is the political life in the suburban district of New York’s Hudson Valley, one of the most competitive and key states for each side in the quest to control the House. At a time when voters swing recoiling on the party’s national reputation, the candidates here work hard to convince voters that they are nothing but caricatures they hear from the other side, and politics is nothing but local.

“They’re trying to moderate each other, which is interesting because you rarely see competition in the middle,” New York-based Democratic strategist Jon Reinish told ABC News. “I think that’s what most voters in this district, and not in this district, want.”

Flood of ads

Those messages were backed by tens of millions of dollars in spending from each side, prompting an avalanche of television, digital ads and mailers that voters told ABC News were caught off guard.

Some areas in this race have not always been competitive and were previously represented by Democrats like Eliot Engel and Nita Lowey, senior lawmakers who never faced serious competition in their re-election bids in the district when it was drawn at the time.

Today, voters can barely open their mailbox, search YouTube or turn on the television without being bombarded by campaign messaging.

That’s on top of the non-stop campaign schedule where it seems there’s no resident here who doesn’t know who the candidate is.

At a Halloween-themed event at Strawtown Elementary School in West Nyack on Friday, waves of kids came up to Lawler asking for selfies and asking if he was “really Mike Lawler,” apparently trying to figure out if he was actually Lawler or dressed like him. — but always knew at a young age that he, regardless of the inability to vote for people.

The reception was typical, Lawler told ABC News, especially giving recognition to YouTube ads.

And at a Halloween parade in Nyack, a liberal neighborhood in Rockland County, Jones was greeted with cheers as he marched through town. Lawler was greeted with a smattering of fist bumps as he walked with his wife and daughter, as well as one woman giving him two thumbs down.

Conversations with more than two dozen residents of the district show that voters generally believe that the candidate they choose will be an adequate actor in Congress and stand up to the other side.

“He’s always been honest, and he’s done everything to show that he supports the community, supports law enforcement,” Jason Rudnitsky, a detective for the New York Police Department, said of Lawler. “Mondaire Jones has done to prove that he stands with (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) and his team, and I do not believe in what they stand for. And for that reason, I voted against them.

“I think at this point we really need to have a Democratic Congress, especially if Trump wins the election, we need to have a balance against him, and I think Mondaire Jones will do a better job of representing our district overall,” added Elias Kahn, voter Westchester County who works for a legal research firm.

Even in politics, voters seem to focus on national issues. Only one voter in several conversations and shows ABC News participated in raised local school taxes. Instead, the concerns are mostly immigration (the southern border is about 2,000 miles away by car) and abortion (current state law protects abortion rights, but a ballot initiative seeks to formally add it to the state constitution).

The tough presidential race is colored by the House contest

The strategy of each candidate to nationalize the race is perfect.

Trump lost this district by 10 points in 2020, which means Lawler will need a significant enough separation from the party leadership to stay viable and repeat what will be another win.

But the district is not fertile for progressive policies, with concerns about crime and inflation, but also abortion and democracy, which means that Jones must emphasize pragmatism and distance himself from his former allies and attitudes, including past comments about defunding the police – he said. said taken out of context.

His yard sign tells the story — Jones says he’s a “Democrat for Congress.” Lawler said only that he is running for Congress, with some calling him “Rockland himself.”

Lawler’s allies believe that the incumbent has done enough work to carve out a fairly unique identity, thanks to a combination of on-the-ground campaigning, a flood of advertising and a tenure that now includes two years in the House and beyond. local position.

“Everybody knows who Mike Lawler is now, and has an impression of him,” said New York GOP strategist William O’Reilly. “He knows how the campaign works, and he knows you have to be an ass to get anywhere in people.”

When asked how confident he is that Lawler’s version has sunk in, Jones said he thinks “some people are still learning that Mike Lawler is going to be a credible choice” for Trump’s priorities.

“We’re working hard to make sure that people learn those lessons in the next 10 days that haven’t learned those lessons. Every day, the conversation gets better,” Jones told ABC News Saturday.

Of course, the district is still heavily influenced by the presidential race — Lawler needs to pull ahead of Trump, while Jones needs to keep every voter for Vice President Kamala Harris in the fold, and more than Trump’s 10-point loss. in 2020 could create insurmountable obstacles for Republicans down the ballot.

“Obviously, the closer it is, the easier it is to open the border,” Lawler told ABC News.

Still, voters and both candidates predict a tight presidential contest here, making the battle over perceptions key to House contenders’ closing arguments. And while conversations with district voters did not reveal many who plan to split tickets for Harris and Lawler — a positive sign for Jones — some Democrats said they were worried that people knew they would do it.

“I’m a Democrat, but I’m not opposed to voting for a Republican if they have certain values ​​that I’m looking for,” said Moshe Amsel, a lawyer from Suffern who voted for Harris but is still sifting through information about Lawler and Jones before deciding who to back.

There is no reprieve until all is done

The reality is that the candidates are in the middle of the picture fighting each other.

Lawler said he would support Trump and Johnson and voted against the Democratic messaging bill that would do things like protect abortion access and rights programs, although he also received praise from President Joe Biden and advised Trump to stop discussing the 2020 election conspiracy. Jones ran as a progressive in his successful 2020 campaign, but he voted in Congress for a bill that increased funding for law enforcement and Israel.

But whatever the candidates can win is key here — and for Congress as a whole.

Reliable public opinion polls are low, but surveys that have been released show a very competitive House race. The Democratic and Republican parties must surround or capture districts like Lawler if they want to control the House come 2025. With the winnowing number of competitive districts in play throughout the country, seats like this are a must-win, and the party that proves it. with a check book.

Voters here described feeling overwhelmed by all the attention on the race, lamenting the flood of ads and wondering how they added up to so many text blasts from each party.

They likely won’t find any reprieve until Nov. 6.

“There is no ignoring the fact that it is one of the most competitive races in the country. Then there is a really strong focus by donors, groups, party apparatus on both sides of the aisle,” Reinish said. “It’s very clear that this district is a battleground for the House and a location of very hateful activity.”