| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Ciro Riccardi | ciro@lawlerforcongress.com | (845) 642-6569 CAIT CONLEY MAKES IT OFFICIAL, FULLY EMBRACING THE WORKING FAMILIES PARTY, WHICH HAS CALLED TO DEFUND THE POLICE AND ABOLISH ICE Conley, who touts herself as a “moderate,” is joining forces with a party that wants to defund the police, abolish ICE, end military aid to Israel, and spent millions helping elect the Socialist Mayor of New York City – Zohran Mamdani. Pearl River, NY — August 08, 2026… Cait Conley accepted the endorsement of the New York Working Families Party yesterday, saying she is “excited to be working alongside” the party to make NY-17 “more affordable for us all.” The rollout, announced in Politico’s New York Playbook by New York Working Families Party director Jasmine Gripper, aligns the Democratic nominee in NY-17 with a party whose national and New York leaders have spent years campaigning to cut police budgets, abolish ICE, raise taxes by tens of billions of dollars, and end military aid to Israel. “The same party that spent seven figures electing socialist Zohran Mamdani just claimed Cait Conley as one of its own, and she says she’s ‘excited’ about it. Hudson Valley voters won’t be,” stated Lawler for Congress spokesman Ciro Riccardi. The Working Families Party has a very radical and extensive record. The party’s official account posted “Defund the police.” on May 31, 2020, and national director Maurice Mitchell used the party’s blog that same week to urge supporters to call the mayor of Minneapolis and “tell him to cut the police budget.” Weeks later, the party launched a national PAC to elect local candidates committed to moving money out of police budgets, and the “People’s Charter” platform it helped unveil that fall calls to “shift resources away from policing, jails and detention centers.” The party’s New York chapter has defended the state’s 2019 cashless bail law, which ended cash bail for most offenses, and opposed efforts to roll it back. On immigration, the party’s own website hosts a petition to abolish ICE that calls it “a rogue agency.” In 2024, the party urged Democrats to kill the bipartisan Senate border compromise, calling its revival of Trump-era immigration restrictions “a profound betrayal.” The party has been just as clear about Israel. Weeks after October 7, it urged Congress to vote no on $14 billion in military aid to Israel, calling the package “a green light and a blank check.” It demanded the Biden administration halt shipments of offensive weapons to Israel, it accused Israel of “perpetrating a mass starvation campaign,” and Mitchell called what is happening in Gaza a “genocide” in a 2024 interview. In 2024, Gripper and her co-director urged New York Democrats to leave their presidential primary ballots blank, demanding that President Biden “correct course on the war on Gaza.” Conley says she wants to make the district more affordable. The party she took backing from has one answer for affordability: MORE TAXES. In New York, the chapter’s legislative agenda called for six new state taxes, and Gripper personally testified in Albany in support of a slate of tax increases totaling roughly $64 billion in their first year. This year the chapter even declined to endorse Governor Hochul in the Democratic primary while its leaders declared that Albany “must raise revenue by taxing the rich,” but they’ve had no problem endorsing Cait Conley. The candidates the party elevates tell the same story. The New York chapter ranked Zohran Mamdani first on its mayoral slate, the party’s independent expenditure arm spent seven figures electing him, and the new mayor is a Democratic Socialist who called the NYPD “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety,” promised city-owned grocery stores, supports boycotting Israel, and accuses it of genocide. In May, the national party endorsed Abdul El-Sayed, who says, “When I’m in the U.S. Senate, I intend to lead the effort to abolish ICE,” and pals around with Hasan Piker, a radical extremist who thinks America deserved 9/11. In Pennsylvania, the party endorsed State Rep. Chris Rabb for Congress and, with its allies, spent roughly $1.5 million to support him, a candidate who cast the lone committee vote, 25 to 1, against a bill making infant trafficking a first-degree felony. In 2022, the party endorsed the entire Squad, including Ilhan Omar, who called for dismantling the Minneapolis Police Department. Even Democrats have warned against this alliance. New York State Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs said of the party’s ballot line in 2024, “It doesn’t make sense for a Democrat to take the line and defend their positions.” The Working Families Party itself passed over Conley in the June primary, endorsing Tarrytown Trustee Effie Phillips-Staley, who finished third with the party’s backing. Conley, despite all of the baggage, welcomed the party’s support anyway, saying “I’m excited to be working alongside the New York Working Families Party.” “Cait Conley spent the primary telling Hudson Valley voters she was a moderate and normal, and certainly not radical, and she has spent the weeks since being unable to crack 50% of the vote collecting public praise from AOC and now the endorsement of the party of defund the police, abolish ICE, and tax everything that moves,” said Lawler for Congress spokesman Ciro Riccardi.”The Working Families Party has decided Cait Conley is one of their own, and Cait responded by saying she’s ‘excited to be working alongside’ them.” “This is a party that has advocated for defunding the police, abolishing ICE, stripping Israel of its right to defend itself, and much, much more. The WFP has also backed candidates who think infant trafficking shouldn’t be a felony, who won’t condemn the notion that America deserved 9/11, believe we should increase federal taxes by trillions of dollars, and increase taxes on New Yorkers by tens of billions of dollars,” concluded Riccardi. “Cait Conley, the self-proclaimed ‘moderate Democrat,’ looked at all of those stances and said, I’m in. No one should believe a word she says, and every voter in the Hudson Valley will understand Cait will be just another rubber stamp for the radical left.” Lawler represents one of just eight Republican-held districts in the country carried by Kamala Harris in 2024 and won reelection by more than six points. In the latest nonpartisan Bridge Grades report card, he earned a 99.2 out of 100 for bipartisanship, the best score in New York’s congressional delegation. |
Cait Conley Makes It Official, Fully Embracing the Working Families Party, Which Has Called to Defund the Police and Abolish ICE
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