Did GOP Rep. Mike Lawler vote for Trump in presidential primary? He won't say

It seemed like a softball question for U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, the telegenic freshman Hudson Valley Republican running for re-election to Congress during the 2024 presidential year.

Who would Mike be voting for in the April 2 Republican presidential primary?

After all, on the ballot was the nation’s 45th president, Donald J. Trump, who’d dispatched his opponents in the winter scrum for GOP delegates. Trump stood tall as his party’s presumptive nominee for the November election, all the while fending off criminal trials in four jurisdictions up and down the East Coast.

That softball question on his presidential favorite turned out to be hard for the Pearl River Republican to answer. There's history.

Lawler, 38, the highest-ranking elected official in the new generation of Hudson Valley Republicans, was a Republican National Convention delegate for Trump in 2016.

A Republican political strategist by trade, Lawler was executive director of the New York State Republican Committee in the early 2010s and has worked for the Trump political operation. He was a principal in the consulting company, Checkmate Strategies, when it landed a $4 million direct-mail deal from a Trump-aligned political action committee to attack Joe Biden in the 2020 campaign cycle.

On Tuesday, Lawler wouldn't say if he'd voted for Trump in the New York presidential primary, or if he voted at all. And by Friday, he still wouldn't say.

More: Lawler defends bipartisan budget vote despite cut to federal law enforcement

Trump, who cleared the field in the early primaries, won 86% of the vote in Tuesday’s Republican primary in the 17th Congressional District. Only 5% of Republicans voted in the primary. Nonetheless, it revealed a split between diehard Republicans voters, who were all-in on Trump’s third run for president, and Lawler, who was AWOL from the MAGA bandwagon.

When the presidential primary results crystalized on Wednesday, I reached out by email to Lawler campaign spokesman Chris Russell, of Checkmate Strategies.

I asked what Lawler had to say "to the Republican faithful in the 17th District who turned out to support Donald Trump by such a large margin."

Russell declined comment.

Democratic political consultant Jon Tomlin said Lawler’s reluctance to say if he backed Trump reflects the difficulty Republican candidates face in 2024, even with a New York Times Siena College nationwide poll in late February showing Trump leading Joe Biden by 48% to 43%. .

“It’s a no-win situation for Lawler,” said Tomlin. “There are people who like Trump, and there are people who don’t like Trump. Asking Lawler who he voted for was a simple question, with a very difficult answer. Voters deserve to know where he stands.”

Dan Pagano, who chairs the Cortlandt Republican Town Committee in the 17^th District, acknowledged that Lawler finds himself squeezed with Trump atop the ticket. Pagano understands how unpopular Trump is among Hudson Valley Democrats, now preparing their attacks ads for this summer.

“Mike tries to be a reasonable guy, but we are in a polarized political world, where your opponents take no prisoners,” he said.

Lawler's national profile: moderate suburbanite

In a district where there are 80,000 more enrolled Democrats than Republicans, and Trump has long been a lightning rod, Lawler has kept an arms-length from the party's presumptive nominee. And it's only three months before Republicans convene for their convention in Milwaukee.

Lawler’s reluctance to embrace the candidate who will lead the GOP ticket in November reveals a problem for New York Republican candidates in 2024. While Trump remains popular with most New York Republicans, his multiple indictments, impending trials, and the fallout from the repeal of Roe v. Wade — thanks to Trump's appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court — remain prominent in the public sphere.

Instead of coattails at the top of ticket, headwinds are blowing down ballot in the 17th.

More: In face of criticism, Lawler rescinds press ban at his Congressional Town Halls

Lawler’s dilemma unfolds in the 17th Congressional District, which comprises Rockland and Putnam counties, and parts of Westchester and Dutchess. While Democrats outnumber Republicans, voters are famous for straying from the party line, as they did in 2022 when Lawler ousted five-term incumbent Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-Cold Spring.

During his first term in Congress, Lawler has crafted a national profile as a moderate suburban Republican who works across the aisle on domestic and international issues, especially for the broad spectrum of cable television news programs. He appears regularly on Fox News, MSNBC and CNN.

Backing Donald Trump on April 2 did not neatly fit that profile.

Trump's history with the Hudson Valley

Trump has long been a polarizing figure in the 17^th District, and the subject of concerted opposition during his heyday as a real estate developer in the early 2000s.

Citizen groups and environmental organizations in the Hudson Valley engaged with public boards to oppose a slew of Trump proposals in the 17^th District. They fought Trump for more than a decade at his Seven Springs estate in Bedford, North Castle and New Castle, beating back Trump proposals to develop a golf course and suburban mansions.

Then came ambitious golf course proposals on Yorktown's French Hill and along a Putnam Valley hilltop. There too, spirited grassroots opposition joined with local officials to derail the plans. Their triumphs preserved the natural landscape, and resulted in Trump's donation of 436 acres to create Donald J. Trump State Park in those two towns.

The Trump Organization’s bright spot in the 17th District is Trump National Golf Club Westchester in Briarcliff Manor, an 18-hole course with golf villas down the 8th fairway. That’s where Trump battled the town of Ossining assessor for years over the taxable value of the golf club. Hundreds of protestors marched to the course in 2017 in opposition to Trump’s bid to slash his property’s taxable value by 90%.

In 2021, Trump settled the tax case, which cut the value by 32%, and brought his company $861,000 in property-tax check refunds.

The stormy end of Trump's presidency in January 2020 brought further damage to Trump's name in the Hudson Valley. In 2021, condominium owners at Trump Tower in the Democratic stronghold of White Plains said the name was so toxic they changed it to The Tower at City Place.

But condo owners in the 17th District at the Trump Park condominium complex in Republican-leaning Yorktown voted to keep the former president's name on their abodes. It showed that Trump remains a force in Westchester County.

For now, Lawler has apparently moved on. But will he show up in Milwaukee without wearing a bright red MAGA hat?

Sign up for Wilson's weekly newsletter for insights into his Tax Watch columns.

David McKay Wilson writes about tax issues and government accountability. Follow him on Twitter @davidmckay415 or email him at dwilson3@lohud.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: NY Rep. Mike Lawler mum on whether he voted for Trump in GOP primary