Congressman Mike Lawler, a New York Republican who delivered a critical victory for the GOP on election night, explained his success to Fox News on Thursday, saying that “voters in New York are fed up with one party Democratic rule.”
Two days after the election, several House races remain uncalled, and control of the lower chamber of Congress remains undetermined. If Republicans can eke out a majority, the party will have a unified federal government until at least 2026.
Lawler won his race with 52.4 percent of the vote, defeating his Democratic challenger, former Rep. Mondaire Jones by 6.8 points.
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Mike Lawler, Republican candidate for New York’s 17th Congressional District, greets supporters at the end of Senate candidate Bill Weber’s speech during an election night party, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022, in Pearl River, N.Y. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Lawler’s district, New York congressional district 17, is just north of New York City and is primarily suburban, middle-class. Politically, the district is fairly split between party lines, making it a highly targeted district for both sides. Democrats poured in millions in hopes of flipping the seat blue.
The race ended up being one of the most expensive House races in the country.
Republicans also garnered victories in nearby districts 1, 11 and 12, all of which are suburban areas near New York City.
Lawler said that ultimately, New Yorkers’ concerns over inflation, the cost of living and crime pushed him to victory.
“In a state like New York where Democrats control everything and they have created an affordability crisis, a crime crisis, the migrant crisis exploding, billions of dollars of taxpayer money, voters had had enough,” Lawler said. “Voters want us to focus on the issues that impact them most acutely and that is the economy, that is the border, that is the international crises that we’re seeing, energy policy.”
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line up in front of the East Village re-intake, converted into a city-run shelter for newly arrived migrant families in New York City, United States on Dec. 4, 2023. (Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Lawler homed in on the border crisis as especially important to his constituents.
“What Joe Biden and Kamala Harris allowed over the last three and a half plus years, 10.5 million migrants coming into the United States, its unfathomable,” he said. “It’s created a crisis in states like New York where they’re spending billions of dollars.”
David Laska, spokesperson for the New York state Republican Party, told Fox News Digital that the victories in his state were spurred on by President-elect Donald Trump’s clear messaging to voters on issues that they care about.
In the presidential race, Vice-president Kamala Harris won New York. However, she earned nearly 6 percent less of the vote share than Biden did in 2020.
“Kamala Harris tried to run on vibes. What does that even mean? What a joke,” he said. “President Trump ran on inflation, immigration, those were the issues that mattered to Americans. And you saw Republican victories up and down the ballot.“
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Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to speak during an election night event at the Palm Beach Convention Center on November 06, 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Americans cast their ballots today in the presidential race between Republican nominee former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as multiple state elections that will determine the balance of power in Congress. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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Laska believes Tuesday’s election is indicative of a broader political realignment of working-class voters who no longer believe the Democratic Party cares about their needs. Put simply, he said that people just wanted change.
“Look, New York is a blue state, but it’s not progressive blue. It’s not woke blue. It’s blue-collar blue. It’s working-class blue. These are the old ‘Reagan Democrats’ as we used to call them. And you might be calling a lot of them ‘Trump Democrats,’” he said. “When you look back on this chapter of history, because voters of all stripes had economic concerns, had concerns about immigration, and again, President Trump spoke to those. Kamala Harris did not.”
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