The Post endorses Mike Lawler, Alison Esposito & Marc Molinaro for the House

New York’s not a swing state, but it’s central to the battle for control of the House of Representatives. Several of the “swing districts” are north of the city, in or near the Hudson Valley.

The key issues in these districts include the Harris-Biden illegal-migrant crisis, rising crime and taxes.

Endorsing these Republicans is a no-brainer choice on all fronts:

• The current GOP House already passed an excellent border-control bill (HR2) that the Democratic Senate refused to consider. A Democratic House might pass something, but it would be tailored to appease the party’s progressives, who don’t really want the border controlled at all.

• Crime is more a state and local issue than a national one, but Democrats keep trying to pretend it’s not an issue at all, citing a single outdated FBI statistic to claim it’s going down nationally. And there’s no question that New York Democrats are on the wrong side: They’ve given us the no-bail and Raise the Age laws and other “reforms” that have sent crime through the roof since 2019 — and they’re the party of #DefundThePolice (and #AbolishICE, for that matter).

• Democratic majorities always want to raise taxes, and it never winds up being only “the rich” who get hit. Meanwhile, New York Republicans have also gotten Donald Trump to agree to ease up on the SALT (state and local tax) deduction, which he massively reined in with the 2017 tax law that launched a huge economic boom — while Dems did nothing on SALT even when they controlled Congress in 2021-’2.

Dem candidates are also insisting that their GOP opponents will be the deciding vote to ban abortion nationwide; that’s an outright lie on every level.

Any such bill (indeed, any national abortion measure, whether pro-life or pro-choice) has zero chance of passing either chamber of Congress for the foreseeable future; this GOP House hasn’t tried; all these candidates say they’d oppose it — and Trump has said he’d veto it.  

Every time Democrats raise this issue, it’s to avoid the ones that actually count.

National Democrats and left-wing dark-money outfits have poured tens of millions into these races, funding endless televised smears of the Republicans. Race by race, here are the details:

NY-17 (Rockland and Putnam counties, plus parts of Westchester County and Dutchess)

Rep. Michael Lawler narrowly beat then-incumbent Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney in 2022; he’s since gone on to serve as one of the most bipartisan members of the House, passing multiple bills including several that President Biden signed into law.

The Democrat is progressive ex-Rep. Mondaire Jones, who left the district in 2022 to avoid a primary against Maloney, opting for a failed run in a Brooklyn district.

In his one term, Jones was a solid ally of The Squad and other far-left pols — a fan of defunding cops, letting criminals loose, abolishing ICE, throwing the border open and handcuffing the Border Patrol; he also voted four times against funding Israel’s Iron Dome.

He now tells voters he’ll be a moderate on all these issues; no one should believe him.

Lawler, by the way, was an early and loud voice for pushing fraudster Republican Rep. George Santos (R-Long Island) out of the House. He’s a steadfast supporter of Israel and a solid opponent of “sanctuary city” nonsense as well as the disastrous Harris-Biden border policies.

He’s got the backs of cops, too; every police union endorses him.

And Lawler actually got a bill to partly restore SALT up for a vote in the House — but House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had every New York Democrat vote against it. 

Figures.

He’s also a strong voice in state politics, rightly denounced Gov. Kathy Hochul’s pause of congestion pricing as “no more than an election ploy.”

NY-18 (Orange County, most of Dutchess and Ulster, plus the cities of Newburgh, Beacon, Kingston, and Poughkeepsie)

Republican Alison Esposito retired from the NYPD to be Lee Zeldin’s running mate in their 2022 bid to oust Gov. Kathy Hochul; she’s stayed in politics to challenge Rep. Pat Ryan.

The former NYPD deputy inspector is campaigning on a law-and-order and border-security platform; she also backs restoring SALT and standing with Israel.

And she’s a whirlwind of energy, a charming straight-shooter who’ll work tirelessly for the district.

Ryan, by contrast, has voted multiple times against aid to Israel, even as the Jewish State faces war on seven fronts. Last December, he voted “present” on a resolution to condemn anti-Zionism as antisemitism, also choosing not to condemn the genocidal “from the river to the sea” call for the elimination of Israel.

He started calling for a cease-fire in February, long before Israel had finished its necessary campaign to eliminate Hamas in response to the Oct. 7, 2023 atrocities, and has sat largely silent as pro-Hamas agitators act out on campuses in the district.

And as Ulster county exec in 2019, he banned local law enforcement from working with ICE; in the House, he’s voted against restarting work on the border wall, against beefing up the Border Patrol, against restoring Remain in Mexico and against tightening up rules for using asylum claims to enter the country illegally.

He’s a Democrat: His vote in the House supports the party line on the border, crime and so on. He even joined all other New York Democrats in voting against lifting the SALT cap.

NY-19 (spans the Catskills, Finger Lakes, Hudson Valley and Southern Tier)

This is a rematch, as Rep. Marc Molinaro beat Democrat Josh Riley in 2022 by a slim 2% margin.

But that was actually Riley’s second choice for where to run: He’d first moved further upstate — after decades living and working in DC and California — before deciding this district was the best place to plant his carpet bag.

Molinaro, by contrast, has deep roots in the district, serving an assemblyman and Dutchess County executive. In two years in the House, he’s scored as the second-most-bipartisan member and the fifth-most productive when it comes to passing legislation — no easy feat for a freshman.

Riley’s running ads on his “Republican values” and border toughness, but in his long career (out of state) as a Democratic operative, supported 32 (thirty-two!) lawsuits to open the border, ease up on immigration enforcement, etc.

He fought for the Biden “prosecutorial discretion” policy that’s let thousands (or more) criminals, gang members and terrorists into our nation.

As a staffer for lefty then-Sen. Al Franken, he wrote a bill to grant citizenship and benefits (including Social Security) to millions of illegal immigrants.

And he has long ties to the far-left, anti-Israel Working Families Party — which is also a huge backer of open immigration, sanctuary-city policies and vast benefits for illegal migrants.

He not only got the WFP endorsement in 2022 and again this year, he was a keynote speaker at the WFP annual fundraiser in 2017. On a WFP questionnaire, he endorsed voting rights for illegal immigrants.

And he’s been silent on anti-semitism at his alma mater, Harvard — while pulling big campaign bucks from other Harvard alums who’ve also been bankrolling the pro-Hamas protests.

Molinaro has called the hate and antisemitism flooding campuses and social media since Oct. 7, and been a solid Israel supporter in Congress.

He was another player in getting Trump to rethink SALT, and in ridding the House of George Santos.