Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, chairman of the powerful Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, on Wednesday, conceded defeat in his bid for a House seat in the northern suburbs of New York City to Republican state Assemblyman Mike Lawler, a devastating and symbolic loss for Democrats.
The Associated Press has yet to call the race. With more than 95 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Lawler led Mr. Maloney by 1.2 percentage points.
“I hate to lose, but my opponent won this race. He won fair and square. That means something,” Mr. Maloney said in an emotional statement sent via Zoom from the D.C.C.C. Headquartered in Washington. “The right thing to do is let the other guy win and wish him luck.”
On a day when the Democratic Party seemed destined to lose control of the House, but nevertheless met many expectations, Mr. Maloney’s concession served as a dubious distinction: He became the first chairman of the House Campaign Committee of either party to lose a re-election race. Elections since the early 1990s.
Even before his exit, Republicans were already celebrating Mr. Maloney’s defeat, including Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, who gleefully cited it as part of the party’s gains in New York, his normally liberal state. The party did surprisingly well.
Mr. Maloney said he could not predict with “100 percent certainty” who would win the majority, but said that even though Republicans ultimately won a slim majority, Democrats “stand out across the country.”
Mr. Lawler, a first-term congressman, ran a vigorous and sometimes vicious campaign against Mr. Maloney, chairman of the powerful Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, mocking his international travel and portraying his hires as out of touch with local residents. Hudson Valley Home.
Like many Republicans in New York and nationwide, Mr. Lawler has consistently focused on crime, as well as the economy and inflation, issues of import in the 17th Congressional District, where many suburban communities are battling high property taxes. He was also helped by an infusion of nearly $60 million into the race by the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC affiliated with the Republican congressional leadership.
Mr. Maloney was first elected a decade ago to serve in the neighboring 18th Congressional District, but after a state judge threw out previous maps earlier this year — calling them biased, and ordering them to be redrawn — Mr. Maloney chose to run in the 17th. In the south, in a slightly more democratic area. In doing so, he effectively displaced another, less-senior Democratic lawmaker, Mondair Jones, which drew some criticism from other members of his party.
Mr. Jones, who has mostly kept quiet about the race in his old district, issued a one-word statement on Twitter after Mr. Maloney conceded: “Yikes.”
Mr. Maloney survived a primary challenge but had to adjust to the contours of the new district. And as the race to the general election loomed this fall, Mr. Maloney’s fortunes seemed to be slipping, leading to the committee he led pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaign ads in the final weeks.
It didn’t work, as Mr. Lawler rode a wave of discontent and traditional middle-of-the-road power out of the White House to win a landslide victory. The 17th District race was one of three in the Hudson Valley region considered competitive, despite New York being a deeply liberal state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than two to one.
Republican congressional leaders in New York, including Representative Alice Stefanik, the third-ranking Republican in the House, are pushing the state party to the right, embracing some of the policies and rhetoric of former President Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Lawler ran a somewhat more moderate campaign — for example, distancing himself from the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, and denying false conspiracy theories about a Trump victory in 2020 — apparently aimed at wooing independents and conservative Democrats. Both candidates sought to court the Orthodox Jewish community in the newly redrawn district, including Rockland County, home to several large Hasidic communities.
Mr. Lawler is a longtime Republican political activist, having previously worked for former County Executive Rob Astorino in Westchester. He now runs his own political consulting firm, which worked on his congressional campaigns. He has also worked as a lobbyist on behalf of interest groups pushing for a new natural gas pipeline in New York.