The withdrawal of nonprofit executive Jessica Reinmann from the Democratic primary in New York’s 17th Congressional District — a top-targeted swing seat currently held by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) — is bringing the top contenders in the wide field into focus.

Reinmann, who endorsed military veteran Cait Conley upon her exit from the race, was one of eight — now seven — challengers aiming to take on Lawler in next year’s midterms.

A Democratic strategist in the district said he believes Conley, along with Rockland County Legislator Beth Davidson and potentially former Briarcliff Manor Mayor Peter Chatzky, comprise the top rung of candidates in the crowded race.

Those three candidates also led the field by a wide margin in fundraising as of the end of September. Conley had raised $1.3 million, Davidson $1.2 million and Chatzky $1 million. However, the vast majority of Chatzky’s war chest — $750,000 — comprises a personal loan to his campaign.

Davidson and Conley were invited to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Candidate Week event in Washington earlier this month, where they received additional training and media preparation — a sign the national party sees the two women as the strongest contenders to take on Lawler. 

Conley’s campaign has taken on a distinct national dimension, as she has touted her military background alongside a series of other female national security alumni in swing races. The so-called Hell Cats, a group that formally launched this week, is explicitly modeling itself after Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger, New Jersey Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill and Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), each of whom flipped House seats in the 2018 midterms.

In her endorsement, Reinmann said she believes Conley is “by far the strongest candidate in this race” and that she has “seen her commitment to our nation and our shared values.”

Jake Dilemani, a New York political consultant, said that Conley’s profile — a woman with a national security and military background — is “unique and compelling” and one that voters seem receptive to at the moment. But he also cautioned against drawing too many one-to-one conclusions about Conley’s candidacy based on Spanberger and Sherrill’s victories in their recent off-year gubernatorial elections alone.

Davidson, meanwhile, has been racking up local Democratic endorsements, particularly in Rockland County, and she is the only Democratic candidate who hails from that part of the district, where Democrats have struggled against Lawler in previous cycles. Rockland Democrats’ backing for Davidson has not been without some internal controversy, however.

The strategist said that Davidson’s Jewish faith and family could give her a boost in a district where Jewish voters make up a significant and highly engaged portion of the voting population, and have been a strong base of support for Lawler. The Republican congressman has seen particularly strong support in Rockland County’s ultra-Orthodox community.

Dilemani also noted that Tarrytown Trustee Effie Phillips-Staley, who is running as the “de facto lefty” in the field, could rally a base of support with that approach and “pick up some of the enthusiasm that the left has from [Mayor-elect] Zohran [Mamdani]’s win,” but also emphasized that the Democratic voting base in NY-17 is much less progressive than that of New York City.

He said that the field will likely consolidate further in the coming months after the next fundraising deadline at the end of the quarter.

“Whoever is the nominee is going to have a tough challenge going up against Mike Lawler because he has proven himself to be a savvy politician, a good retail campaigner, a good fundraiser, and he has a pretty responsive constituent services team, so the party is going to have to produce a very, very solid candidate to run against him,” Dilemani said.

Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime New York Democratic consultant, also emphasized that Lawler has been popular and has a strong reputation for constituent services, which will make him a formidable incumbent. But he also said that Lawler and Republicans are likely to face backlash over the lengthy government shutdown, and that both Davidson and Conley could give him a strong challenge.

On Israel policy, both Davidson and Conley have expressed support for the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Davidson has highlighted that her daughter stayed in some of the kibbutzim that were attacked on Oct. 7, 2023, and said in a position paper that, “For me and for my family, championing the sanctity and safety of Israel is not an abstract political stance or foreign policy issue. It is deeply personal — woven into the fabric of our identity and survival as Jews.” She has expressed support for continued U.S. aid to Israel.

Conley, an Army veteran who spent time in the Middle East and North Africa in counterterrorism operations, said that, “As someone who has spent my career fighting for democracy, I deeply value Israel as America’s strongest ally in the region, the only democracy in the Middle East and a safe haven for the Jewish people” and that the U.S. should be “firmly committed to the safety and security of Israel.”

During the war between Israel and Iran, Conley expressed hope for a negotiated nuclear agreement but said that “Iran’s unwillingness to abandon the pursuit of nuclear weapons has left the world with few choices” and said that she knows firsthand the necessity of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But she also warned about “being drawn into another Middle East conflict.”

Davidson told JI on Thursday that last week’s election results show that voters are looking for change from the Trump administration, but distanced herself from Mamdani.

“What was clear across the country on election day was that voters were motivated to the polls by a strong disagreement with the Trump agenda and a desire for more affordability,” Davidson said. “I bring a very different record than Mayor-Elect Mamdani does, having cut taxes, fully funded our police force, and vocally stood up against antisemitism as a well-known Jewish leader in my community. That’s a record I’m ready to take to Mike Lawler from now through next November.”

Conley told Jewish Insider earlier this year, after Mamdani’s primary win, that she did not agree with his approach. “We need to address affordability but not by raising already exorbitant taxes on New Yorkers that will just drive more people out of the state. We need to stand up for the NY Jewish community and stand against anti-semitism in all forms,” Conley told JI.

But she said that Mamdani’s victory showed that voters are looking for alternatives to career politicians — like herself.

Chatzky has distinguished himself from many in the field with a significantly more critical stance toward Israel — he has accused Israel of violating U.S. arms sales laws, requiring the suspension of arms transfers, and said he did not believe that Mamdani is antisemitic.

Jessica Reinmann, a Democratic nonprofit executive challenging Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) in New York’s 17th Congressional District, said, in a recent interview with Jewish Insider, that she feels a deep personal connection and dedication to the State of Israel and to the Jewish people, which she traces back to her strong relationship with her grandfather when she was young.

Her grandfather’s mother and her sister were the only children, out of 16 in their family, to survive the Holocaust, but they were separated — her great grandmother coming to the United States and her sister going to Israel.

She said that her grandfather would regularly visit his family in Israel and would tell her stories about them, teaching her that Israel is “not just a state” but “our homeland.” She said that her grandfather also instilled in her a strong sense of Jewish heritage and peoplehood, recalling that he helped her practice her haftorah for her bat mitzvah, and saw him reading it along with her as she recited it.

“For me, Israel’s right to exist, its right to defend itself, its right to be our homeland — the Jewish people’s homeland — located where it is is undeniable,” Reinmann said. “We’ve had a long-standing relationship that not only protects democracy in the Middle East, but it protects all of the Jewish citizens of the United States … and we must maintain that relationship.”

When he died, her grandfather required that some of the inheritance he left her family be used for them to visit Israel, which they did in 1994. It was Reinmann’s first time out of the country — her family could not previously afford to travel to Israel.

Reinmann recalled in detail the feeling of connection to the history of the Jewish people when she stood before the Western Wall in Jerusalem and placed a note addressed to her grandfather between the bricks.

“I remember my note that I put in the Wailing Wall was ‘Dear Grandpa, I finally made it. I love you,’” Reinmann said. “My grandfather was my person, and so being there was just a connection to him that I have never felt again.”

Reinmann said that her Jewish upbringing — strongly influenced by her grandfather — and the values of tikkun olam and tzedakah that it instilled in her have been a major influence on her desire to give back to her community, first as a nonprofit leader and now as an aspiring public servant.

The district in the New York City suburbs, once a blue bastion, has been key to Republicans’ control of the House in the past two cycles and Democrats are hoping to claw it back in the next year’s midterms. It’s also among the most Jewish districts in the country, and the incumbent Lawler has built strong support in the community.

Addressing the specifics of the war in Gaza, Reinmann emphasized that Hamas provoked the war by attacking Israel and taking hostages, and that it could have ended the war at any time by releasing the hostages.

The three priorities for the U.S. now, Reinmann said, must be returning all of the hostages, “annihilat[ing] Hamas” and finding a path forward toward peace.

“I think we really need to take back our standing in the world as the leader of the free world and as the leading democracy,” Reinmann said.

“I imagine [peace] looks like a two-state solution at some point, but until there’s less hatred, until everybody can deal with each each other with dignity and respect, there’s going to be a lot of peacekeeping that needs to be done once Hamas is gone to protect Israel and Israelis,” Reinmann said.

Asked about the regional threat from Iran, Reinmann said that the U.S. needs “do everything that we can … both diplomatically and militarily” to ensure that Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon, as well as cut off Iran’s financing.

“I think we really need to take back our standing in the world as the leader of the free world and as the leading democracy,” Reinmann added.

On the home front, Reinmann said she’s seen the impact of campus antisemitism through her daughter, who is currently a student at Yale. Her daughter, she said, had to walk past and through antisemitic encampments with signs calling for “Intifada” and “From the River to the Sea.”

“She’ll say that it was no big deal because she could walk away from it, but I think it changed her,” Reinmann said.

“When institutions that receive a significant amount of federal funding continuously allow students on their campus to feel scared and to feel discriminated against and to not be able to get into classes — if we don’t hold places accountable under Title VI, there’s no point in having Title VI,” Reinmann said.

She said that she strongly believes in the First Amendment, even the right to express hateful views, as long as it is done in a manner that is civil and in compliance with relevant regulations. But she emphasized that speech that incites violence is not free speech. 

She said that college campuses need to fulfill their legal responsibilities to protect students against discrimination, and if they fail to do so, the law is clear that their funding should be revoked, with due process.

“When institutions that receive a significant amount of federal funding continuously allow students on their campus to feel scared and to feel discriminated against and to not be able to get into classes — if we don’t hold places accountable under Title VI, there’s no point in having Title VI,” Reinmann said.

She said she had been involved locally in implementing and improving Holocaust education, work Reinmann said she began when she built a relationship with the Holocaust and Human Education Rights Center in White Plans, N.Y., through her daughter’s bat mitzvah project.

Reinmann said that her daughter told her that her school did not have any dedicated Holocaust education and subsequently, as the head of the middle school parent-teacher association, Reinmann worked with the school to bring in a Holocaust survivor to speak and launch a Holocaust education program.

Reinmann found that her daughter’s high school did not recognize International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and she joined a Jewish parents’ group which pressed the school to institute an annual day of special classes for students from second through twelfth grade on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

She said that more than 70 families from the school also came together last year for a Shabbat dinner, with the goal of “really making the Jewish religion not so obscure to people.”

Before facing Lawler — or another Republican, should he decide to run for governor of New York — in the general election, Reinmann will face Rockland County legislator Beth Davidson and likely other Democrats in the Democratic primary. The district is among House Democrats’ top targets to flip in the upcoming midterms.

Reinmann has spent the last 10 years leading 914Cares, an anti-poverty charity based in Westchester County, but said that with the return of the Trump administration, she felt she could do more to make a difference on the issues that she cares about by stepping up to run for federal office.

She said that her experience at 914Cares has exposed her to and given her experience working with a broad cross-section of the Westchester community, from affluent donors to underresourced communities. She said she also formed local networks with schools, health care centers, day cares, police and fire departments and other nonprofits to distribute assistance and meet people where they are.

Reinmann’s organization does not take federal money, but she said she has been involved in local, state and national political advocacy on poverty issues. 

Her key issues in Congress, she said, would be affordability, supporting unions, poverty awareness and gun safety legislation, naming several fellow New York Democrats including Reps. Pat Ryan (D-NY), George Latimer (D-NY) and Grace Meng (D-NY) as specific members she’s hoping to work with on such issues.

She also emphasized the need to restore the U.S.’ standing globally, repair relationships with allies that Trump has damaged and restore USAID, as well as protect government services that the administration has or may attempt to cut.