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3 Female Front-Runners Challenging NY’s Mike Lawler Make This a Race to Watch

A decorated Army veteran, a Working Families Party candidate and a longtime liberal politician and activist make the Democratic primary in Hudson Valley’s CD-17 riveting.

Cait Conley, now a candidate in New York’s 17th Congressional District, at a Politico conference on AI in September 2024.

Running for Congress in a Democratic primary to face GOP Representative Mike Lawler in New York’s purple 17th Congressional District, up in the Hudson Valley, Effie Phillips-Staley and Cait Conley have essentially the same strategy: to dramatically expand the electorate.

But for Tarrytown Village trustee Phillips-Staley, the district’s Democratic coalition needs to widen to win progressives, young people, poor people, and people of color, especially Latinos (her mother is an immigrant from El Salvador). For political newcomer Conley, a decorated Army veteran, Democrats need to embrace “the estimated 50 percent of the district that has a family member, if not themselves, who is a first responder or a military veteran, or actively serving in the military.” Plus, West Point graduate Conley says, “people who don’t see themselves as voting Democrats.” Such people, she told a recent forum, “relate to me.”

But will they relate in a Democratic primary? We’ll find out June 23.

If the Conley vs. Phillips-Staley faceoff sounds familiar, it should. This debate, between whether Democrats must mobilize their presumed base or expand the party’s reach to independents and even Republicans, is taking place all over the country in the 2026 midterms. The 17th is diverse enough that both women can find data proving them right. It’s the lone district carried by Kamala Harris in 2024 that’s represented by a Republican in the House. Its four counties—Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, and Duchess—contain pockets of poverty and affluence, whiteness and multiculturalism. Putnam County is almost 90 percent white; Westchester County is roughly 50 percent white and almost 30 percent Latino.

The Hudson Valley showdown even contains elements of a mini establishment vs. insurgents blowup: Should Democrats speak to journalists, podcasters, and others whose views, even when they’re not right-wing, are abhorrent to some in the party? In this case, Phillips-Staley recently sat down with heterodox progressive Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has said the US “deserved” the 9/11 attacks, dismissed accounts of rape by Hamas on 10/7 because Israel has committed “genocide” in Gaza, and has made sexist remarks he’s dismissed as “satire.”

The chairs of the four Democratic county parties in the 17th denounced Phillips-Staley’s appearance with Piker. But the progressive shot back by saying “the Democratic party has long operated with an outdated mentality” that’s driving away young people and those who “prioritize human rights.”

The dynamics of this race have gotten scrambled since I covered only a part of it writing about Conley’s membership in the “Hell Cats,” four female military veterans running for Congress as Democrats. At that point, Conley looked like she would have the most money (she does), the most prominent endorsements (she mostly does), and the best chance to beat Lawler in what is still a purple district. But she stumbled when asked questions about consulting for two AI firms that work alongside Peter Thiel’s software company, Palantir, which has contracted with ICE, the Department of Defense, and many other government and private entities; she says her work has nothing to do with Palantir’s ICE contracts. She’s also been criticized for getting money from the PAC Democratic Majority for Israel.

The race has essentially come down to three female front-runners, Conley, Phillips-Staley, and Beth Davidson, the not-to-be underestimated Rockland County executive and longtime nonprofit advocate. On the eve of a debate that was supposed to showcase four front-runners, locking out people who didn’t have sufficient pulling support, self-funding tech executive Peter Chatzky locked himself out, after a........

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