Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican in a crucial New York swing district, and Cait Conley, his Democratic challenger, sparred in a debate on Monday over President Trump’s policies and their records, as well as hot-button issues like data centers and energy costs.
The debate, which took place in the afternoon and aired later on News12, was the first time that Mr. Lawler and Ms. Conley had appeared onstage together during the campaign. Ms. Conley used the moment to highlight her decades of military service, while Mr. Lawler sought to burnish his bipartisan bona fides by sharing examples of how he had worked with Democrats in Washington.
But more than anything else, the two candidates attacked each other, with Ms. Conley seeking to portray Mr. Lawler as a lackey of Mr. Trump while Mr. Lawler characterized his opponent as a carpetbagger.
Ms. Conley, a combat veteran and a national security expert in the Biden administration, beat two opponents who ran to her left in the June primary. Since then, Mr. Lawler and his allies have focused on her work for a company that built anti-drone systems and another that used artificial intelligence to scrape public sources for law enforcement analysis.
At Monday’s debate, Mr. Lawler said Ms. Conley’s professional history — and her unwillingness to describe the specifics of her work, citing nondisclosure agreements — was emblematic of an ethically murky culture in Washington.
“You left the Biden administration to get a private sector job with big A.I. and big tech to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Mr. Lawler said, “only to move up here two months after you got the contract.”
Ms. Conley, who last year moved to the district to run for Congress, said it was a desire to make a sacrifice for her country that had caused her to spend decades away. Democrats are betting that her long record of military service will attract more moderate voters.
About $16 million has been spent on advertising by the two campaigns and their outside supporters, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm, making it one of the most expensive congressional races in the country. Unseating Mr. Lawler is a top priority for Democrats as they seek to take back control of the House.
Mr. Lawler was first elected in 2022 to represent the district in New York City’s northern suburbs, which former Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly won in the 2024 presidential election. It encompasses Rockland and Putnam Counties, as well as parts of Westchester and Dutchess Counties.
There has been little public polling in the race since the primary. But even in a national political environment that is proving favorable to Democrats, Mr. Lawler, a former state legislator, will not be easy to beat.
The economy and the cost of living proved to be the focus for much of the debate’s beginning, with voters in News12’s Long Island studio asking the candidates about how they would contain rising prices.
Mr. Lawler said he wanted to reopen the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which was closed in 2021, and permit natural gas extraction in an effort to bring down energy prices.
Ms. Conley, for her part, said the federal government should incentivize clean energy production, and criticized the Trump administration’s decision to roll back tax breaks for wind and solar projects.
The candidates also engaged in a tense back and forth over the value of building more data centers in the district and across the state. Each candidate asserted that the other was beholden to technology interests funneling money into the race.
Though she has previously said there is a need for data centers, Ms. Conley also applauded the one-year pause on the construction of the largest such centers that Gov. Kathy Hochul put in place in July, and she said during the debate that she backed such moratoriums.
Mr. Lawler said it should be left up to local municipalities to decide whether they wanted to build the facilities or put moratoriums in place.
It remains unclear whether Mr. Trump’s sagging approval rating will be a drag on Mr. Lawler, who regularly defends the administration’s actions on immigration, tariffs and the Iran war. Ms. Conley laid into her opponent, highlighting these ties.
“Families are struggling because of the harm that he has done, voting with Donald Trump and his agenda 100 percent of the time,” Ms. Conley said. (An analysis by Congressional Quarterly found that in 2025 Mr. Lawler voted yes on bills Mr. Trump approved of 94 percent of the time.)
Though he has welcomed Mr. Trump and his allies to the district for events, Mr. Lawler has gone to great lengths to emphasize his independence.
During the debate, Mr. Lawler noted that he was one of several Republicans who went to war with their party leadership in an effort to raise or abolish the $10,000 cap on the amount of state and local taxes that can be deducted on federal tax returns. (The cap was raised to $40,400 for several years, which Mr. Lawler hailed as a major victory.)
Mr. Lawler and Ms. Conley were asked if they supported a ban, recently enacted by Ms. Hochul, on formal collaboration between local law enforcement and immigration agents.
Mr. Lawler was quick to say he opposed the law. Ms. Conley did not directly answer, but has previously said that such cooperation should not be allowed.
“We also must rein in ICE,” she said onstage.
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