Dem Vying To Unseat Rep. Mike Lawler Blast­ed For ‘Ama­teur’ Cam­paign After Walk­ing Back ‘Bizarre’ Alle­ga­tion

Rock­land Coun­ty leg­is­la­tor Beth David­son has come under fire for lead­ing an “ama­teur hour” cam­paign after walk­ing back her pre­vi­ous claim that Repub­li­can New York Rep. Mike Lawler vot­ed to cut fund­ing for a pub­lic works project in his dis­trict.

David­son, one of sev­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates run­ning to unseat Lawler in the bat­tle­ground House dis­trict, alleged that the two-term con­gress­man had vot­ed to elim­i­nate fed­er­al dol­lars for a water qual­i­ty improve­ment project in the Hud­son Val­ley seat. But after a series of tweets intend­ed to expose Lawler for alleged­ly fail­ing to deliv­er on the fund­ing for his con­stituents, David­son ulti­mate­ly con­ced­ed that the GOP law­mak­er had indeed secured mon­ey for the project dur­ing the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year. (RELATED: Just Four Dems Vote To Keep Non-Cit­i­zens From Vot­ing In US Elec­tions)

“[A]s Jer­ry Orbach famous­ly said in Dirty Danc­ing, when I’m wrong I say I’m wrong,” David­son wrote on X Thurs­day, cit­ing a line from a 1987 film.

Scrolling thru X and what to MY won­der­ing eyes should appear, but an unse­ri­ous can­di­date – des­per­ate for atten­tion – who doesn’t do her home­work.

Hey Beth, this project was already fund­ed in FY24.

Delete your post and do bet­ter. https://t.co/j2Y8pPQAHc

— Mike Lawler (@lawler4ny) April 9, 2025

Lawler, who com­fort­ably defeat­ed for­mer New York Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep. Mondaire Jones in Novem­ber, has secured fund­ing for pub­lic works projects in New York’s 17th Dis­trict through con­gres­sion­al­ly-direct­ed spend­ing, com­mon­ly known as “ear­marks.” He suc­cess­ful­ly steered near­ly $36 mil­lion in com­mu­ni­ty project fund­ing to his dis­trict dur­ing the fis­cal year 2024 appro­pri­a­tions process, four times larg­er than what his Demo­c­ra­t­ic pre­de­ces­sor had secured dur­ing the 117th Con­gress, accord­ing to a March 2024 state­ment.

Lawler notably issued a press release about secur­ing the rough­ly $2 mil­lion award for the clean water project as part of his con­gres­sion­al­ly-direct­ed spend­ing requests in June 2024.

“Projects like these, while not flashy, are more impor­tant than almost any oth­er,” Lawler said in the release.

Despite Lawler obtain­ing the fed­er­al dol­lars for the project dur­ing the fis­cal year 2024 appro­pri­a­tions process, David­son accused the GOP law­mak­er of vot­ing to elim­i­nate mon­ey for the same project by sup­port­ing a March spend­ing bill that fund­ed the gov­ern­ment for the remain­der of fis­cal year 2025.

Lawler point­ed out mul­ti­ple times that Davidson’s claims were inac­cu­rate and she was mix­ing up the fis­cal year he secured the fund­ing.

One of Davidson’s tweets with an accom­pa­ny­ing screen­shot alleg­ing the clean water project had been defund­ed by Lawler has since been delet­ed from the Demo­c­ra­t­ic candidate’s X page after the Dai­ly Caller News Foun­da­tion reached out to her cam­paign for a request for com­ment.

Though the award date for the clean water project was not read­i­ly appar­ent in an image David­son post­ed, Lawler and his cam­paign have accused David­son of inten­tion­al­ly mis­lead­ing vot­ers and ques­tioned if she under­stood the basics of how to read a bud­get.

“Before Beth David­son lec­tures any­one on how gov­ern­ment works, she should learn how to read a bud­get and tell the dif­fer­ence between two fis­cal years,” Chris Rus­sell, cam­paign spokesman for Lawler, told the DCNF in a state­ment.

The alle­ga­tions began with David­son smirk­ing in front of a road sign thank­ing Lawler for secur­ing fed­er­al dol­lars for a clean water project in the dis­trict.

Dri­ving thru Put­nam Coun­ty and what to my won­der­ing eyes should appear but a sign tout­ing Mike Lawler’s now-defund­ed clean water project. Oh dear! #Thanks­ForNoth­ing #Lawler­Lies pic.twitter.com/wXqI9oQczb

— Beth4Congress (@BethDavidson17) April 9, 2025

“Dri­ving thru Put­nam Coun­ty and what to my won­der­ing eyes should appear but a sign tout­ing Mike Lawler’s now-defund­ed clean water project,” David­son wrote on X Wednes­day. “Oh dear!”

“Delete your post and do bet­ter,” Lawler said in a response stat­ing that he secured fund­ing for the pub­lic works pro­gram dur­ing the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year.

The fol­low­ing morn­ing on Thurs­day, David­son took anoth­er jab at Lawler in the since-delet­ed post for alleged­ly vot­ing to defund the same water qual­i­ty improve­ment project. Lawler point­ed out for a sec­ond time that the award mon­ey was part of the $36 mil­lion that he helped secure in fis­cal year 2024.

“How do you expect peo­ple to take you seri­ous­ly as a con­gres­sion­al can­di­date if you don’t under­stand the dif­fer­ence between fis­cal years and inten­tion­al­ly lie to peo­ple?” Lawler asked in reply. “Fur­ther­more, all of the FY25 projects are being resub­mit­ted, and despite your bizarre cheer­lead­ing against them, will be deliv­ered to the munic­i­pal­i­ties as promised.”

David­son also accused Lawler of vot­ing to “rip away” the $33 mil­lion in com­mu­ni­ty project fund­ing by vot­ing for the GOP spend­ing bill. She dou­bled down on the claim when pressed by the DCNF about its accu­ra­cy.

“Mike Lawler vot­ed for the fis­cal year 2025 Con­tin­u­ing Res­o­lu­tion that gut­ted fund­ing for all $33 mil­lion that he false­ly claimed he ‘secured’ for NY17,” David­son told the DCNF. “The Fis­cal Year 2025 Put­nam project that Mike Lawler vot­ed to defund was $4 mil­lion to replace a 60-year old water treat­ment facil­i­ty and reduce tox­ic PFAOs in the drink­ing water that goes to Carmel’s hos­pi­tal and high school.”

Lawler request­ed rough­ly $33 mil­lion in com­mu­ni­ty project fund­ing for New York’s 17th Dis­trict for fis­cal year 2025. How­ev­er, after Con­gres­sion­al lead­ers failed to come to an agree­ment on pass­ing appro­pri­a­tions bills through reg­u­lar order, Repub­li­can law­mak­ers passed a stop­gap gov­ern­ment fund­ing bill in March to avert a loom­ing gov­ern­ment shut­down. That fund­ing mea­sure, known as a con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion, did not include ear­mark requests from any law­mak­er and large­ly kept gov­ern­ment spend­ing at cur­rent lev­els.

Lawler — and oth­er law­mak­ers from both par­ties — are expect­ed to resub­mit requests to secure fed­er­al fund­ing for com­mu­ni­ty projects in their dis­tricts in future appro­pri­a­tion cycles.

Repub­li­can law­mak­ers, includ­ing Lawler, have blamed Sen­ate Minor­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer for fail­ing to take up the appro­pri­a­tions bills that passed the House last Con­gress, which in part pre­vent­ed the FY25 con­gres­sion­al­ly-direct­ed spend­ing from being signed into law.

“David­son can also thank fel­low clue­less New York Demo­c­rat Chuck Schumer for this mess,” Rus­sell said. “He’s the one who failed to pass a sin­gle appro­pri­a­tions bill through the Sen­ate, result­ing in the need for a CR to keep the gov­ern­ment fund­ed and open.”

The Nation­al Repub­li­can Con­gres­sion­al Com­mit­tee (NRCC), who is expect­ed to aggres­sive­ly defend Lawler’s seat, crit­i­cized David­son for seek­ing to “fear­mon­ger and lie about her oppo­nent,” in a state­ment to the DCNF.

“This is an ama­teur hour cam­paign from a rad­i­cal can­di­date, and vot­ers will reject her resound­ing­ly,” NRCC spokesper­son Mau­reen O’Toole said.

Lawler is one of 35 Repub­li­can incum­bents that House Democ­rats’ cam­paign arm is seek­ing to defeat dur­ing the midterms. He is one of three Repub­li­can con­gress­men that won in Novem­ber despite for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris car­ry­ing their dis­trict, which Trump lost by less than a per­cent­age point.

The non­par­ti­san Cook Polit­i­cal Report’s ear­ly esti­mate of the race rates the con­test as “Lean Repub­li­can.”

Lawler was ranked as the sixth most effec­tive law­mak­er in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the 118th Con­gress despite being a fresh­man rep­re­sen­ta­tive, accord­ing to the non­par­ti­san Cen­ter for Effec­tive Law­mak­ing (CEL) joint­ly man­aged by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia and Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty. The CEL found that he was the most effec­tive law­mak­er among all mem­bers in their first term dur­ing the pre­vi­ous con­gress that con­clud­ed in Decem­ber.

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