Representative Mike Lawler, a two-term Republican who was a chief target of Democrats in the critical midterm elections, conceded on Tuesday to his Democratic challenger, Cait Conley, in a swing district in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Mr. Lawler chose to concede despite uncertainty hanging over the race because of tens of thousands of uncounted votes in Westchester County, where issues with the voting machine programming led to Election Day chaos and delayed the vote count until Wednesday. The New York Times has not accepted the race call.
Speaking at a banquet hall in a Hilton hotel in Pearl River, N.Y., Mr. Lawler said that he had called Ms. Conley to congratulate her and that “when all the votes are counted tomorrow in Westchester, it will be pretty clear.”
“I’m a big believer of humble in victory and gracious in defeat,” he added.
Mr. Lawler portrayed himself as an independent Republican, but Ms. Conley tried to alter that narrative on the campaign trail, suggesting that Mr. Lawler was in league with President Trump and voted with him “100 percent of the time,” according to one campaign ad. (Mr. Lawler cast his vote for Trump-supported bills 94 percent of the time in 2025, according to an analysis by Congressional Quarterly.)
Ms. Conley, a newcomer to politics, held leadership positions in the Biden administration, eventually leaving to work for a company that built anti-drone systems and to consult for an artificial intelligence firm that scraped public sources for law enforcement analysis. Mr. Lawler had accused Ms. Conley of using her connections for personal gain, suggesting that she was wading into ethically murky territory.
Ms. Conley did not bring up her 19-month sojourn into the private sector on the campaign trail, instead emphasizing her military service; she spent over a decade in uniform before joining the National Security Council.
Her time in the military helped underscore to voters her more moderate stance — applauding Gov. Kathy Hochul’s moratorium on data centers in the state while declining to say whether she supported local law enforcement collaborating with immigration agents.
“We started this because we knew that America, the land of promise and opportunity, was on the wrong path — but we knew, if we came together, if we brought people together, that we could fix it,” Ms. Conley said on Tuesday night at her results party at Club Infinity in Pleasantville. “And tonight we show that this fight wasn’t a partisan fight. This was a patriotic fight.”
Wesley Parnell and Kristi Berner contributed reporting.
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