President Joe Biden’s campaign to pressure vulnerable House Republicans in the debt-ceiling fight gained a boost Tuesday when the sister of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced she’s running in a New York swing district.
(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden’s campaign to pressure vulnerable House Republicans in the debt-ceiling fight gained a boost Tuesday when the sister of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced she’s running in a New York swing district.
Liz Gereghty, a school board member and local businesswoman, said she’ll run as a Democrat for the Hudson Valley seat now held by freshman Republican US Representative Michael Lawler.
Gereghty’s announcement comes a day before Biden is set to visit Lawler’s district to deliver a speech intended to pressure the congressman and other swing-district Republicans to break with party leaders and vote for an increase to the $31.4 trillion debt limit — without spending cuts the GOP is demanding as a precondition.
Biden is meeting with congressional leaders at the White House Tuesday in an effort to break a partisan impasse over the matter, and will travel to New York on Wednesday to take his case to the public.
He’s expected to lay out his case for how the Republican plan to cut spending would hurt teachers, veterans and seniors.
Read more: White House, McCarthy Disavow Short Debt-Limit Extension
Gereghty, who filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission last month, announced her candidacy via a campaign video Tuesday.
She said extreme Republicans in Congress — enabled by Lawler — were “trying to roll back women’s reproductive rights, blocking even modest gun safety measures, threatening to default on the debt and spending more time worrying about how to ban books than helping our families and small businesses thrive.”
Gereghty has no political experience beyond a non-partisan school board race.
But as the sister of a prominent Democratic governor — a prolific fundraiser who is seen as harboring future presidential aspirations of her own — Gereghty is likely to be a formidable candidate.
Lawler did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but told the Associated Press that he’ll accept Biden’s invitation to attend the speech at Westchester Community College in Valhalla, New York.
“He’s coming to my district, specifically to talk about the most pressing issue,” he said.
House Majority Forward, a Democratic super PAC, is targeting Lawler and other vulnerable Republicans with videos and billboards accusing them of “holding the economy hostage” in the debt limit fight.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the US government could cease being able to meet its obligations as soon as June 1.
Lawler’s election by just 1,820 votes last year was one of a handful of upset victories that helped Republicans take control of the House with a razor-thin majority.
He defeated Democrat Sean Patrick Maloney, the then-chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Maloney and former Democratic Representative Mondaire Jones could also be candidates for the seat.
The district, redrawn last year as part of a court-ordered map aimed at undoing Democratic gerrymandering, includes all of Rockland and Putnam counties, and parts of Westchester and Dutchess counties.
Biden won the new district by 10 percentage points in 2020.
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