No matter which party winds up controlling the House, New York and the Hudson Valley’s 17th Congressional District will be far better off re-electing Rep. Mike Lawler over carpetbagging challenger Cait Conley.

He’s a hard-nosed centrist with deep roots in the district, consistently ranked as one of the most bipartisan members of Congress who got his own party and President Donald Trump to set aside ideology
to give New Yorkers a major tax break by boosting the ceiling on SALT.

She’s an operative parachuted in by the DC-based Democratic machine — bringing radical views out of touch with Hudson Valley values, barely camouflaged by an expensive campaign deeply funded by
out-of-state interests.

The Hudson Valley congressman, a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, isn’t just paying lip service to working across the aisle — he delivers: That’s why Rep. Jared Golden, a Maine Democrat retiring this year, crossed party lines to endorse him as a “true partner” in getting things done.

A champion for small business and lower taxes, Lawler is pushing hard for federal permitting reform and against top-down energy mandates at both the state and federal levels.

To guarantee reliable energy for the Hudson Valley, he also supports restarting Indian Point.

He rightly slams Gov. Kathy Hochul’s job-killing moratorium on data centers, arguing local communities should decide their own economic future.

On immigration and public safety, Lawler brings pure common sense: Local cops and jails should work with ICE to boot criminal migrants off our streets — but enforcement should be balanced with practical needs and basic decency, hence his push for Trump to more gradually end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians who’ve served the community well, as well as for the bipartisan Dignity Act to normalize status for the law-abiding.

Conley toes the far-left party line, denouncing ICE and backing sanctuary policies while pretending she just doesn’t want local law enforcement spending money on cooperating in expelling violent criminals like the killer of Sheridan Gorman — whose Yorktown Heights parents pointedly endorsed Lawler.

Lawler had to spend most of the campaign, including two debates, pushing the issue before Conley would finally disown Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s endless antisemitic hate speech; she prefers to fudge on Israel as on every other tough issue.

Indeed, all she really wants to talk about is Trump, pathetically painting Lawler as the prez’s patsy when his record proves the reverse.

Conley is a cardboard candidate sent by Democratic central casting to provide another loyal vote for her party’s machine; Lawler is a fiercely independent fighter for his neighbors.

You always know where Mike Lawler stands; Cait Conley is pure chameleon; He deserves every vote in the district, and the gratitude of the entire state.