President Donald Trump put his midterm coattails to the test Friday by trekking into a New York House district won by Kamala Harris in the last presidential election.
“It’s this radical turnaround, and we better do it fast, because we’re not going to have a New York left, and we got to have New York left,” Trump said to cheers. “Guys like Mike Lawler, guys like Bruce Blakeman, you put them in, they’ll turn it around.
“With the help of your great congressman … we got your taxes cut,” he added. “Your take-home pay has soared, and all of the other things that we did. … The Democrats, they want to raise your taxes.”
That was a reference to New York GOP Rep. Mike Lawler, who was Trump’s host for an event in Suffern, a city tucked into the southern tip of the Empire State. Lawler won the 17th District by 6.3 percentage points in 2024, while the former Democratic vice president bested Trump there by 1 percentage point. It was one of only three House districts won by a GOP candidate and Harris.
Trump appeared with Lawler at a community college in Rockland Country, where he defeated Harris in 2024, 55.7 percent to 43.9 percent. The White House touted the stop as an official presidential visit to discuss the Trump 2.0-congressional Republican economic record and its efforts to lower prices in a county with a median household income of $109,959, according to Census Bureau data.
