Cait Conley, a national security expert and combat veteran, won the Democratic nomination for a New York House seat whose winner could help decide control of Congress, according to The Associated Press.
Ms. Conley’s victory sets up a showdown with Representative Mike Lawler, a Hudson Valley Republican who has tried to balance moderate policy positions with a full-throated defense of President Trump.
Already, Ms. Conley’s campaign has drawn millions of dollars in outside spending from national Democratic groups that believe her military background and ability to position liberal values as patriotic will make her competitive in a district that contains its fair share of veterans.
Enlisting after watching the Twin Towers fall in her junior year of high school, Ms. Conley served six tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, becoming one of the first women to lead a special ops team. She went on to serve as the director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The first in her family to graduate college, Ms. Conley, 41, has received degrees from West Point, Harvard and M.I.T.
The 17th Congressional District is one of the country’s few remaining swing districts. In 2024, the district voted to elect Kamala Harris president, even as it returned Mr. Lawler to Washington. Until 2022, the seat was held by Sean Patrick Maloney, who led the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
With 37 percent of the vote counted on Tuesday, Ms. Conley was 24 points ahead of her closest rival, Beth Davidson, a Rockland County legislator. Effie Phillips-Staley, a progressive activist and Tarrytown village trustee, was in third place with 15 percent.
The contest between the two front-runners had become increasingly nasty. Ms. Davidson used the work that Ms. Conley did for two intelligence and defense contractors to claim that her opponent had helped support the Trump administration’s deportation agenda.
Ms. Conley has denounced the actions of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and called for reforms of the agency and an overhaul of the immigration system.
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