Brian Lerer on WNYC.

Today we're interviewing the Democratic and Republican candidates in an important swing congressional district, New York 17, covering all of Rockland and Putnam in parts of Westchester and

Dutchess counties, north of New York City, of course. The incumbent who was on earlier in the

hour is Republican Mike Lawler. Now we have his Democratic challenger, former Congressman

Mondare Jones, in this district that might be crucial to deciding control of Congress.

Again, part of the context here is that in 2022,

the New York suburbs were one of the only areas of the country

to experience a meaningful Republican wave that had been predicted to be much more widespread.

And again, there's this weird third-party factor in this race

that everybody should be aware of if you're in the district.

The Working Families Party has fielded its own candidate who beat Mondair Jones in that party's primary,

but this is not the third party challenge from the left that you'd normally think of when the Working Families Party goes out on its own.

The candidate is widely believed,

believed to be a Republican plant just trying to take votes away from Mondare Jones. In fact,

the Working Families Party itself officially believes that and is urging voters not to vote for their

candidate so as not to inadvertently help elect the Republican.

How weird is that?

Mandar Jones joins us now.

Mr. Jones, thanks for coming on.

Welcome back to WNYC.

Thanks for having me, Brian.

It's been a while, and it's always a pleasure to be on the show because we have really

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