Nancy pins GOP wins on Hochul
OK’d ’22 districts
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently told Rep. Mike Lawler that he should thank Gov. Hochul for helping him and other New York Republicans get elected, the Hudson Valley congressman told The
Post on Friday.
Pelosi said Lawler and his fellow GOP state reps should be grateful to Hochul for weak Democratic results that allowed them to win their House races two years ago, he claimed.
The California Democrat noted, too, that the governor did them a favor by approving new congressional maps last month with limited alterations to district lines.
“We all had a great laugh,” Lawler told Politico, which first reported the remarks.
“I think Nancy Pelosi is a very astute observer of politics and understands that on a fair set of maps, Republicans have a big opportunity in New York.”
The conversation unfolded after President Biden’s State of the Union address last week, which Hochul also attended.
“Lawler is right about one thing — Speaker Pelosi knows politics,” a spokesperson for Pelosi
said in a statement. “And she knows that next January, Mondaire Jones will be back in the House, Democrats will be back in the majority and Hakeem Jeffries will be speaker.”
Pelosi has thrown her weight behind Jones in a bid to claw back Lawler’s Lower Hudson Valley seat from the GOP.
After the 2022 midterms saw Lawler oust Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney in a upset, Pelosi blamed Hochul and other state pols for not realizing soon enough that crime would be a critical issue.
“That is an issue that had to be dealt with early on, not 10 days before the election,” Pelosi told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd in January 2023.
“The governor didn’t realize soon enough where the trouble was.”
Hochul’s campaign said Friday, “Gov. Hochul’s focus has always been on electing Democrats up and down the ballot. In 2024, the governor is committed to taking back the House majority and making Hakeem Jeffries speaker, and that’s why Gov. Hochul is building an unprecedented coordinated effort in New York to get the job done.”