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Elon Musk drops $500K on NY Rep. Mike Lawler's re-election bid
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Jon Campbell
Published Oct 21, 2026 at 10:21 a.m. ET
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By
Jon Campbell
Published Oct 21, 2026 at 10:21 a.m. ET
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Elon Musk has spent more than $500,000 so far on efforts to re-elect Rep. Mike Lawler, the Hudson Valley Republican locked in a competitive race that could determine which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives.
Lawler, who’s fending off a challenge from Democrat Cait Conley in New York’s 17th Congressional District, is one of the top beneficiaries of Musk’s spending in the House, according to federal disclosure reports.
The spending is likely to grow in the final two weeks before Election Day. Two years ago, Musk’s America PAC spent $1.7 million on Lawler — more than any candidate other than President Donald Trump — with more than $1 million of that coming in the campaign’s final weeks.
This year, the spending has helped fund digital advertisements on Google, YouTube and Facebook that depict Lawler as a “fighter” and Conley, an Army veteran and former counterterrorism official under previous President Joe Biden, as a radical allied with the likes of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
But the majority of the money has gone toward America PAC’s voter canvassing and get-out-the-vote operations in the district, which are designed to identify pro-Lawler voters and encourage them to get to the polls, often by text message.
“Michael Lawler … fights higher taxes, fights to lower taxes, fights to deport criminal illegal immigrants,” a narrator says in one Musk-funded ad showing Lawler in boxing gloves before directing viewers to a website instructing them how to register to vote, find their polling place or request a mail-in ballot.
Musk’s spending is a small piece of the more than $16 million that super PACs have spent on the race so far, with both candidates benefitting.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, a group dedicated to electing Republican House members, has spent $6.5 million in the district so far. (Musk has already contributed $10 million to the group’s national efforts.)
Conley has benefited from the House Majority PAC, which pushes for Democratic House candidates and has spent $1.1 million on the race. VoteVets, a group dedicated to electing veterans, has spent about $1.3 million on Conley's behalf. Other PACs associated with Planned Parenthood, teachers unions and the League of Conservation Voters have also spent on Conley.
Conley’s campaign has focused heavily on cost-of-living issues like grocery and utility costs. She’s vowed to support a public option for health insurance and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. And she has tried to use Musk’s spending to her advantage in her bid to topple the second-term congressmember.
When the America PAC first started spending money on the race last month, Conley flagged it in a fundraising appeal.
“Elon Musk last night started pouring his super PAC dark money into our district supporting Mike Lawler,” she said in a video posted to social media.
At a debate last week, Conley pointed to Musk’s support for Lawler when asked about federal regulation for artificial intelligence. One of Musk’s companies, SpaceXAI, developed and owns Grok, an AI assistant integrated into X, his social-media platform.
“I do believe we need to put guardrails in place to make sure there are no mass firings and we're protecting workers,” Conley said during the PIX11 debate. “That's not going to happen as long as you have Elon Musk's guy sitting in NY-17.”
Ciro Riccardi, Lawler’s campaign manager, noted that the Republican’s campaign can’t coordinate with super PACs by law.
“We have no say over what America PAC or any other outside group spends in this race,” he said in a statement.
But Riccardi criticized Conley for decrying spending by Musk’s PAC as “dark money,” when other super PACs are spending on her behalf.
“That’s hypocrisy,” Riccardi said.
Lawler, meanwhile, has repeatedly criticized Conley for her work consulting for an AI company known as Primer.ai, and failing to explain the type of work she performed.
“ She is the AI candidate for the AI industry,” Lawler said during the debate. “She's bought and paid for by them.
Musk, the world’s richest person, has spent more than $276 million on Republican efforts to retain control of Congress since the start of July, according to The New York Times. Much of that money has gone toward a handful of contested Senate races, notably Republican Ken Paxton’s campaign in Texas.
According to Federal Election Commission filings, Lawler’s race is the only one in New York to draw spending from Musk’s PAC this year. In 2024, the PAC spent heavily on two New York House races — Lawler’s 17th District and the 19th District, where Democrat Josh Riley defeated Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro despite Musk’s infusion of cash.
Across the Hudson River, Musk’s PAC has spent $460,000 on Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.’s race in New Jersey’s 7th District against Democrat Rebecca Bennett, according to the FEC filings.
The 2024 race for the 17th District, between Lawler and former Rep. Mondaire Jones, was the third-most expensive in the country that year, according to Open Secrets, which tracks political spending. All told, the candidates and PACs spent about $44.8 million on the race.
This year’s race could put up a similar number. So far, the candidates and independent groups have spent more than $30 million, with a rush of spending expected between now and Election Day.
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Jon Campbell
Jon Campbell covers the New York State Capitol for WNYC and Gothamist. Prior to that, he covered the Capitol for more than a decade for the USA TODAY Network. He has twice earned the Walter T. Brown Memorial Award, an honor given annually by the Legislative Correspondents Association alumni for outstanding state government coverage. Jon grew up in the Buffalo area and graduated from the University at Albany. Got a tip? Email Jon at [email protected] or Signal at JonCampbellNY.90.
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