Does Mike Lawler (NY-17th) have the possibility of being a Biden-district entrenched Republican rep?

[MargieCat]

He seems like an effective communicator and can come off as bipartisan.

Does he get defeated next cycle or does he have staying power?

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

God I hope not. His congressional portrait is the creepiest one I’ve ever seen. He looks like the type to randomly grab womens asses in public

[Roll Roons]

He beat a longtime incumbent assemblywoman in a seat that wasn't expected to be competitive and then took out the asshole DCCC chair in a Biden +10 district despite only launching his congressional campaign in May 2022.

He knows he's in a tough district, and will act accordingly. Don't underestimate him.

[BenjiG98]

As long as he doesn't become New York's Mike Garcia he should be fine.

[Pyro]

Doubtful. He is extremely vulnerable in 2024.

He seems like an effective communicator and can come off as bipartisan.

His latest tweets include criticizing a 'Tax the Rich' rally and complaining about "woke policies."
The dude is not coming off as bipartisan.

[Ragnaroni]

As long as he doesn't become New York's Mike Garcia he should be fine.

Elaborate?

[BenjiG98]

As long as he doesn't become New York's Mike Garcia he should be fine.

Elaborate?

Mike Garcia is in a Biden +12 seat in California and acts too conservative for his district. If Lawler wants to survive in his double digit Biden seat in New York, he probably will not want to act too conservative for his district.

[kwabbit]

Doubtful. He is extremely vulnerable in 2024.

He seems like an effective communicator and can come off as bipartisan.

His latest tweets include criticizing a 'Tax the Rich' rally and complaining about "woke policies."
The dude is not coming off as bipartisan.

Moderate Republicans aren’t just Democrats. This seems like a byproduct of polarization, but partisan news networks have recently sought to construct images of ‘Good Republicans’ or ‘Good Democrats’ that do nothing but spout the network party’s talking points in order for their viewers to feel more bipartisan and dislike the rank and file politicians of the other party more.

Of course he’s going to espouse some GOP culture war type stuff, he’s a Republican in 2022. Yet Lawler has definitely tried to promote himself as a moderate. He’s been vocal about Santos, not giving into the Freedom caucus, critical of Trump.

[Roll Roons]

As long as he doesn't become New York's Mike Garcia he should be fine.

Elaborate?

Mike Garcia is in a Biden +12 seat in California and acts too conservative for his district. If Lawler wants to survive in his double digit Biden seat in New York, he probably will not want to act too conservative for his district.

Garcia may be too conservative for his district, but that hasn’t stopped him from winning there.

[BenjiG98]

As long as he doesn't become New York's Mike Garcia he should be fine.

Elaborate?

Mike Garcia is in a Biden +12 seat in California and acts too conservative for his district. If Lawler wants to survive in his double digit Biden seat in New York, he probably will not want to act too conservative for his district.

Garcia may be too conservative for his district, but that hasn’t stopped him from winning there.

I think that's largely in part to Democrats running the same poor candidate for 3 straight elections.

[Unelectable Bystander]

Doubtful. He is extremely vulnerable in 2024.

He seems like an effective communicator and can come off as bipartisan.

His latest tweets include criticizing a 'Tax the Rich' rally and complaining about "woke policies."
The dude is not coming off as bipartisan.

Depending on what issues he is talking about, this doesn’t exactly stop someone from being moderate. If you generically polled every American if they support “woke policies”, they would say no by probably 3-1 margins.

[ProgressiveModerate]

From what I've seen so far, he's trying to appear more moderate in terms of rhetoric while still having quite a bit to attack on and not actually being willing to buck his own party/work with Dems. 2 years is a lot of time for him to build up a clearer brand and things can def change.

As I've said in another thread, this seat has notable Orthodox Jewish communities that tend to bloc vote either way, and Rs getting that vote is key to winning the district. I suspect he'll make very specific appeals to get their 2024 support.

I would still probably label him as a slight underdog for 2024 though given this is a Biden + 10 seat and outside of the heavily Orthodox communities, the district has been shifting pretty heavily left. 2022 was abnormal in NY and had insanely lopsided turnout dynamics that just won't occur in a Pres cycle.

Also, we're just no longer in an era where a party won't contest an otherwise favorable district/state cause "muh popular incumbent" as poalrization has just increased so much, and the media environment is very fast and hence it's easier to paint a negative view of a supposedly popular incumbent.

[Spectator]

I don’t see him winning in a Democrat wave, no. New York is always prone to toss out pretty much all swing seat incumbents depending on the national mood. See 2010, 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2022.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I don’t see him winning in a Democrat wave, no. New York is always prone to toss out pretty much all swing seat incumbents depending on the national mood. See 2010, 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2022.

At the same time, upstate NY (and more generally New England) has been home to a lot of the most extreme examples of ticket splitting at the federal level in recent history. Brindisi, Delgado, and Katko were all prime examples of this in 2020.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

I don't think he's safe but he's certainly not DOA in 2020

[Schiff for Senate]

God I hope not. His congressional portrait is the creepiest one I’ve ever seen. He looks like the type to randomly grab womens asses in public

I thought we weren't for judging people based on appearance?

[Schiff for Senate]

He beat a longtime incumbent assemblywoman in a seat that wasn't expected to be competitive and then took out the asshole DCCC chair in a Biden +10 district despite only launching his congressional campaign in May 2022.

He knows he's in a tough district, and will act accordingly. Don't underestimate him.

I cannot disagree with your assessment of S.P. Maloney. He was an absolutely terrible choice for DCCC chair, and his utterly self-serving conduct post-redistricting - putting himself over other members of the party - was so deplorable he truly deserved to lose.

As long as he doesn't become New York's Mike Garcia he should be fine.

Elaborate?

Mike Garcia is in a Biden +12 seat in California and acts too conservative for his district. If Lawler wants to survive in his double digit Biden seat in New York, he probably will not want to act too conservative for his district.

Yep, following the Katko example (though a bit more conservative) might be a good bet for him.

[Schiff for Senate]

As long as he doesn't become New York's Mike Garcia he should be fine.

Elaborate?

Mike Garcia is in a Biden +12 seat in California and acts too conservative for his district. If Lawler wants to survive in his double digit Biden seat in New York, he probably will not want to act too conservative for his district.

Garcia may be too conservative for his district, but that hasn’t stopped him from winning there.

I think that's largely in part to Democrats running the same poor candidate for 3 straight elections.

SoCal is actually quite weird that way. Reminder that it's not just Garcia - but also Michelle Steel and especially Young Kim (and David Valado's seat is in both NorCal and SoCal as well). Congressional Republicans really outperformed presidential performances in 2020/2022 in SoCal (LA/Orange County, to be more precise).

[Schiff for Senate]

I don’t see him winning in a Democrat wave, no. New York is always prone to toss out pretty much all swing seat incumbents depending on the national mood. See 2010, 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2022.

Katko?

I don’t see him winning in a Democrat wave, no. New York is always prone to toss out pretty much all swing seat incumbents depending on the national mood. See 2010, 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2022.

At the same time, upstate NY (and more generally New England) has been home to a lot of the most extreme examples of ticket splitting at the federal level in recent history. Brindisi, Delgado, and Katko were all prime examples of this in 2020.

That district - the old NY19, that is -  is especially extreme. It voted for Obama by 6 or 7 points in 2012. But in 2014, incumbent GOPer John Faso* - who had only been in office for two terms as well - won by a whopping 29 points (admittedly it was a red wave, and he faced an entitled multimillionaire carpetbagger in Sean Elridge, but still). Mighty impressive overperformance. Then the district swung quite a bit to the right in 2017 to vote for Trump by a margin similar to Obama's 2012 margin - but it nonetheless flipped blue in 2018 with Delgado. And then presidentially, it swung and trended sharply leftward in 2020 to narrowly support Biden.

*Sidenote: I later read more about Faso, and he seemed like a genuinely good representative and one of the more moderate and pragmatic Republicans. Fwiw, especially given the opponent he faced, I would most definitely have voted for Faso in 2014 was I eligible to do so. For more info about Sean Elridge, his absolutely trash opponent, I recommend reading this insightful (and hilariously caustic) article.

[Bismarck]

God I hope not. His congressional portrait is the creepiest one I’ve ever seen. He looks like the type to randomly grab womens asses in public

Really? I actually remember thinking it looked very generic like any guy on the street.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

God I hope not. His congressional portrait is the creepiest one I’ve ever seen. He looks like the type to randomly grab womens asses in public

Really? I actually remember thinking it looked very generic like any guy on the street.

It’s mostly the way his eyes look and his sorta smirk. If they allow redo’s he should do it

[Tekken_Guy]

Gut feeling is he’s the reverse Brindisi and overperforms the top of the ticket heavily but falls just short of a second term.