Mike Lawler (R-inc.) vs. Cait Conley (D)
I. The Race
Mike Lawler (Republican) is seeking his third term and is one of just three Republicans in the House from a district President Trump lost in 2024. He has a proven record of running and winning in a tough district and is thought of as one of the more skilled politicians in Congress.
Cait Conley (Democrat) is new to campaigning, although she played a big role in CISA’s 2024 election monitoring operations. Prior to working at CISA, she had a long career as an Army officer.
II. District Geography
New York’s 17th Congressional District (NY-17) is located in the Hudson Valley not far north of New York City. It contains all of Rockland and Putnam Counties, as well as the extremely dense northern portion of Westchester County and a small portion of southern Dutchess County. Rockland is a competitive county, Putnam is very red, and Westchester County is a Democrat stronghold. The variance in these counties requires candidates to be flexible on ideology and fast to react to changes in public mood.
This district contains some of the most interesting electoral factoids I’ve encountered in my analysis of the 2026 races, which I will analyze in detail in the summary of this forecast. Until recently, it has been noticeably out of reach for President Trump. That changed in 2024 with his improvements with minorities, religious groups, and in the urban and suburban areas of the northeast.
Presidential Margins
Harris wound up winning NY-17, but just barely at a +0.4% margin of victory. This marked a substantial improvement for Trump, who dropped it by 8.0% in 2016 and 10.0% in 2020, mail-in election and all. Similar shifts in margin in the 2024 presidential elections can be seen in adjacent spaces such as eastern Pennsylvania, throughout New Jersey, and in New York City itself. Lee Zeldin carried the district by four points in his 2022 gubernatorial bid.
Key Statistics
64.4% White, 19.9% Hispanic, 7.1% Black, 5.0% Asian
98.4% Urban, 1.6% Rural
III. Market Assessment
Conley, like most Democrats in decisive races, is favored on Polymarket – but not by a lot. That is an indicator of the competitive nature of this seat and Lawler’s quality as a candidate.
IV. History
Here in the beginning of the 21st century, NY-17 has remained consistently defined, with only slight variations. In elections held from 2002 through 2010, the seat includes parts of the Bronx, Rockland County, and Westchester County. From 2012 through 2020, races covered Rockland and a larger portion of Westchester. Democrats Eliot Engel, Nita Lowey, and Mondaire Jones held the seat.
As soon as the seat was redrawn to add Putnam County and the small piece of Dutchess, Mike Lawler won the seat. Here is his razor close result from 2022:
Impressively, running for reelection in a district Biden had carried by 10 points just four years earlier, Lawler put some serious distance between himself and Mondaire Jones, who had held the seat in a previous form but lost the nomination to face Lawler in 2022.
V. Analysis of 2026 Primary Results
Lawler faced no primary challenge; Conley did, and won the election with just short of a majority:
There is no evidence the rest of the field that participated in the Democrat primary poses a risk to the General Election, as all have gotten behind the Conley campaign.
VI. Polls
Polling data from The New York Times:
Tossing the 5-point outlier (pro-Lawler), we have polling suggesting a dead heat/statistical tie. Enough for me to buy that this is a close race without a clear favorite.
VII. Media Ratings
All major reviewing bodies lack the fortitude to make a call on this race as it stands. A positive sign for Lawler in a fundamentally tough district.
VIII. Party Registration
New York hasn’t updated its voter registration data in a while, but things are moving the right direction for Lawler – unlike how the registration data are moving against Tom Kean in NJ-7.
While this isn’t enough (like in a presidential election) to form a concrete prediction, it is yet another data point suggesting NY-17 isn’t the automatic flip that blue wave advocates surmise it to be.
IX. Election Considerations
I reviewed New York’s 2024 election, which featured a sharp shift in favor of Trump everywhere, in December 2024, in New York – 2024 Election Compendium.
New York has a mixed bag of election laws. They do have Automatic Voter Registration, and also don’t require Voter ID, but the biggest threat to statewide election integrity has to do with transparency. On December 3, 2024, nearly a full month after Election Day, New York tabulated a massive ballot drop that went like this:
That drop had Harris with over three-quarters of the vote, a margin higher than she obtained overall within New York City’s five boroughs. Needless to say, with this sort of leeway, population dense areas have extra power to inflict maximum damage in the event of a close race. Think Westchester County in the battle for NY-17.
X. Summary and Election Estimate
Lawler’s methodology for carrying the district is simple. Knock it out of the park in the red turf present in Rockland, Putnam, and Dutchess Counties, and hold the line in Westchester. Lawler lost the 273 precincts of Westchester County that are part of NY-17 by 12 points (approximately 55% to 43%). Trump lost them by 20.3% (59.9% to 39.6%). Despite the lopsided margin, Trump improved in the Westchester portion by 7.4% over 2020.
What most don’t understand about this district is that it possesses the most overwhelmingly MAGA vote in the United States – even more crimson-shaded than the reddest areas of the Texas Panhandle or the most rural areas of Wyoming or Idaho. Let’s take a closer look at the crimson precincts in the heart of Rockland County:
By my count, there are 11 precincts in the Ramapo area in which Trump won over 95% of 500 or more votes (28 total precincts with Trump at over 95% of the vote). Here’s one example:
Ramapo 55
Trump 987
Harris 1
Other 0
Margin – Trump +99.8%
Trump had a similar margin there, and in the others, in 2020, but in 2016, the same precinct looked like this:
Trump 42
Clinton 657
Other 1
Margin – Clinton +87.9%
By now, I hope you understand why it is you subscribe to Captain K’s Corner – because you won’t find this level of detail anywhere else. Here’s why this is important to 2026:
Lawler is going to own this vote (and he won it by almost identical margins to Trump’s in 2024). He and Speaker Mike Johnson have been all over those precincts and courting the Orthodox/Hasidic Jewish bloc vote. Unlike the scattered voters of the remaining areas of NY-17, this group will absolutely vote, and they will vote for Lawler. The purpose of me pointing this out is not to advocate for any position in the ongoing debates over Zionism; it is to simply tell you that the people who provide the boost for Lawler are almost certainly to discern the emergence of the DSA faction of the Democrat Party as a clear and present threat to their political worldview, and side en masse with Lawler. Trump’s margin in those 28 precincts in which he got over 95 percent of the vote came out to this:
Trump 13,217
Harris 176
Other 30
Margin – Trump +97.2%
Lawler will then take those margins and do the Susan Collins routine to prevent getting blown out in Westchester, and put himself in position to hold his seat. I see the key factors of the race like this:
With Lawler’s resilience in Westchester County and strategic efforts to secure the Orthodox vote (which will vote in large numbers and as directed by their rabbis), I consider him the favorite in this race, even if only by a hair:
I think Westchester will swing, but I also think the turnout of enthusiastic Trump/Lawler supporters in Rockland County will balance this impact; He won’t win the race by 6 points, but he has some margin to give and Conley is the candidate lacking a major bloc vote. She can definitely win the race, but has serious structural challenges to account for.
Seth Keshel, MBA is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a retired Army Captain. He publishes Captain K’s Corner on Substack.
