Cait Conley, a tough-talking Army and national security vet, rolled to victory on Tuesday night, easily besting a crowded NY-17 congressional district Democratic primary field that included Nyack resident and Rockland County legislator Beth Davidson, who finished second.
Although results have yet to be certified, according to early returns of more than 90 percent of the ballots, Conley took nearly 50 percent of the vote, compared to Davidson’s 31.5 percent. Conley won nearly every part of the county by double digits, except for Rockland, where Davidson only trails by 2 points with around 95 percent of the vote counted.
Now, all eyes will be on Conley as she takes on incumbent Mike Lawler, a Suffern native who lives in Pearl River and has represented NY-17, which includes all of Rockland County (as well as parts of Westchester and Dutchess counties), since 2022.
The race is considered one of only 18 “toss-ups” in the entire country, according to the NY Times and Cook Political Report, making it a preciously rare competitive general election matchup.
As the summer heats up a fades into fall, the media, including us, will have ample time to scrutinize these two candidates.
So, who is our contender for Lawler’s crown? Who is Cait Conley?
The first thing you should know is that Cait Conley is a bad ass.
That’s clear from the first moment she enters into a room, aggressively and with purpose. You can see it within one second of tuning into one of her campaign videos, which could also easily double as a montage video for a Nike ad or played before a championship UFC bout held, say, inside the grounds of Trump’s White House.
She’s a real-life GI Jane.
To punctuate and augment her bad assedness, Conley’s biography reads like the tale of a true working-class hero and patriot.
Conley was a smart, athletic kid, the daughter of a postal worker mom (from Peekskill) and a construction worker dad (Hopewell Junction). Her grandfather and great grandfather both worked at the Montrose brickyard.
According to the bio on her website, Conley was a junior at Pine Bush High School when she “watched the Twin Towers fall. In that moment, she felt her calling to serve and protect.”
That vow led Conley to enroll at West Point (which is notoriously hard to get into), where she graduated top 2 percent in her class and became the first in her family to finish college.
From there, Conley enjoyed a distinguished, medal-garnering and, yes, definitely bad-ass, career as an Army officer that featured six stints (that “she can talk about”) in combat zones, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Much of those 16 years were spent with special operations units hunting terrorists. At the height of her career, she became one of the only female leaders to ever run a special ops team. She earned three bronze stars for her outstanding efforts in the field.
After winding down her military combat career, Conley took a job in the Biden administration as the Director of Counterterrorism on the National Security Council and also worked for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), where she says she supported efforts to safeguard our democracy, including “by standing up directly to Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election.”
Unsurprisingly, her career in government appears to have ended with the changing of administrations in early 2025, which is close to the time when she began her ultimately successful campaign for NY-17.
Now, the question is, can she be successful in the general election against Lawler? Well, the public prediction markets, like Kalshi (70%) and Polymarket (63%), say the money is on Democrats winning the final poll.
But Lawler’s proven to be a savvy politician and has taken down two well-known and well-funded Democrats in the past two election cycles. He’s already challenged Conley to six public debates in the lead up to the general election in November and appears ready for verbal combat against the veteran who says she relishes running toward gunfire.
“We celebrate tonight,” Conley told supporters after her election night victory. “Tomorrow, we get back to work because the fight is not over. It’s only just beginning.”
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For more on Primary election night, see links below:
Cait Conley addresses supporters after winning “NY-17 Democratic primary
Watch Nyack’s Beth Davidson on a tough election night: Watch Beth Davidson speak to supporters after NY-17 primary loss
