NEW CITY, N.Y. – The battle for the will be won or lost in congressional districts like New York-17, NY-3, and NY-4, three crucial swing seats in suburban New York City.
And as Republicans work to hold onto their razor-thin House majority in this autumn’s midterm elections, they view the ongoing battle between the left-wing and the center-left establishment for the future of the Democratic Party as political ammunition as they portray Democrats as radicals.
“Democrats have gone further and further and further to the left with no end in sight,” Republican Rep. Mike Lawler argued in a Fox News Digital interview.
Lawler, a two-term lawmaker who represents NY-17, which covers much of New York City’s northern suburbs, spoke soon after three far-left Democrats backed by socialist New York City Mayor defeated more moderate, establishment-backed rivals in showdowns that drew outsized national attention.
Two of primary winners were aligned with the (DSA) and two of the defeated candidates were congressional incumbents.
“My district is impacted significantly by what happens in New York City. Many of my constituents work in the city, they’re cops, firefighters, nurses, teachers,” Lawler said.
He charged that “these radical socialists are taking over the , not just for Congress, but the state legislature. And as I said last year, Zohran Mamdani would become the face of the Democratic Party and its leader, and that is precisely what he is doing.”
Lawler’s Democratic challenger in the midterms is not backed by either the DSA or two other far-left groups, the Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party.
But Lawler, pointing to Democratic nominee Cait Conley’s stance on key issues, argued, “The fact is that she agrees with them from a policy standpoint, even if she doesn’t couch herself in the same title of socialist.”
“My opponent would be a rubber stamp for the radical socialists who are coming, and she wouldn’t have the ability to stand up to these people and push back, and the fact is the Democrats have gone further and further and further to the left with no end in sight,” he charged.
But Rep. Suzan DelBene, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that any GOP push to paint Democrats as far left radicals are “desperate attacks.”
“The midterms will ultimately be a referendum on who is going to lower costs and help improve the lives of everyday Americans – which House Republicans have failed spectacularly to do. In the purple, majority making districts, ” DelBene argued in a statement to Fox News Digital.
She charged that “Republicans already know theyve lost the American people, and thats why they are resorting to desperate attacks that arent actually about the pocketbook issues, but just baseless spin that falls flat with voters who are eager to reject Republicans.”
Conley, a West Point graduate and military combat veteran who was awarded three Bronze Stars during six deployments to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, pushed back on Lawler’s criticism.
“Voters are sick of political insiders, politicians, political operatives who care more about their next reelection than they do solving the actual problems with the time they are given to represent their people,” Conley told Fox News Digital, indicating Lawler, a political strategist before serving as a state lawmaker and then winning election to Congress.
Conley emphasized that “we need new leaders, not people who are part of the political insider network.”
The race in NY-17 is among two to three dozen across the country that will determine if the GOP holds its razor-thin House majority.
So are the showdowns in NY-3 and NY-4, which are located in ‘s eastern suburbs on Long Island.
“I think it will definitely affect us in Nassau County since we’re a border county,” Jeanine Driscoll, the GOP
