TARRYTOWN — Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg spoke to a fired-up crowd at a campaign rally with House candidate Cait Conley, seeking to boost the Democratic challenger's bid to unseat Rep. Mike Lawler in a nationally watched race.
Buttigieg, a 2020 presidential candidate and potential 2028 contender, has been traveling the U.S. in support of Democrats on the ballot this fall. And on Wednesday, Sept. 16, that mission took him to Tarrytown Music Hall in Westchester County, where sign-waving supporters packed the theater and cheered for Conley to flip New York's 17th Congressional District and help Democrats wrest control of the House from Republicans.
Zeroing in on soaring gas prices and other cost increases, Buttigieg said President
Donald Trump had promised Americans lower prices when he campaigned in 2024 but produced the opposite with a GOP-controlled Congress.
"Paying more for groceries in daily shopping because of the tariffs," he said. "Paying more interest because of the deficit they created with tax cuts for the wealthy. Paying more for health care because they got rid of support for the Affordable Care Act. And of course paying more for gas and diesel at the highest price ever recorded as a result of the Iran war."
What Conley said at NY rally with Buttigieg
Conley, an Army combat veteran and former national security official in the Biden administration, is squaring off against the second-term Republican on Nov. 3 for a Hudson Valley swing seat that will help decide which party rules the House next year. Underscoring the importance of the race, super PACS aligned with Trump plan to spend almost $9 million on campaign adsfor Lawler — more than for any other House race, the New York Times reported.
Speaking before Buttigieg at the Tarrytown rally, Conley recalled choosing to go to West Point after the 9/11 attacks while she was in high school, and drew a contrast that has become a defining theme of her campaign. While she served in Iraq and Afghanistan war zones in her six overseas deployments, she said, Lawler was pursuing a career in politics as a "political operative" and "utility lobbyist," as she put it, before he won his House seat.
"That is the real difference between who Mike and I are," she said. "How did we spend the last 20 years of our lives? And it's a reflection of what type of representative we would be."
Conley also went after Lawler for supporting Trump's Iran war and tariffs and for the higher costs they caused. Gas has cost more than $4 million a gallon in New York for almost six months, and the price was averaging $4.62 in Westchester on the day of the rally, according to AAA figures.
Lawler has staunchly defended the war Trump launched in concert with Israel on Feb. 28, saying it was needed to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. He voted multiple times against resolutions in Congress to halt the military action, most recently in a vote the day before the rally.
Also speaking at the rally to warm up the crowd before Conley and Buttigieg were Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who lives in Yonkers. Stewart-Cousins praised Conley for her military and government service.
"She has spent her entire adult life serving people," she said, as the crowd erupted with applause. "Serving people. Protecting people. Caring about people. At a time like this, where we have a federal government that has lost its soul and its mind, we have to send somebody with both — with heart, soul and a brain and an understanding what public service is."
Buttigieg, 44, was a young and little-known mayor of South Bend, Indiana when he waged his 2020 presidential run and did surprisingly well, edging out Bernie Sanders in the Iowa caucuses before later withdrawing and endorsing Joe Biden. He served as transportation secretary under Biden for all four years until Biden's term ended in 2025.
Most recently, he has been stumping for Democrats running in battleground House districts in the Nov. 3 midterm elections. He was in Arizona on Sept. 12 to speak at a rally for Democratic challenger JoAnne Mendoza, and he headlined a similar event the next day in New Mexico on behalf of Rep. Gabe Vasquez and gubernatorial candidate Deb Haaland.
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA TODAY Network. Reach him at CMcKenna@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Pete Buttigieg holds Westchester rally with Cait Conley in House race
