Cait Conley

Cait Conley (born ) is an American national security official and politician. She is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives for New York's 17th district in the 2026 election, challenging Republican incumbent Mike Lawler. Before entering politics, she led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)'s election security efforts during the 2024 election and was a director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council. She served as an officer in the U.S. Army for 16 years with six overseas deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan

Early life Conley is a native of the Hudson Valley region of New York. She is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. She later earned a Master of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Master of Business Administration from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Military career Conley served as an officer in the U.S. Army for 16 years after her graduation from West Point. Early in her career, she was a military police platoon leader in the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, based at Fort Lewis in Washington. While deployed to Iraq with the platoon as a lieutenant, she was among the soldiers who met Vice President Joe Biden during his unannounced visit to Baghdad in January 2010.

National security career After leaving active duty, Conley was the executive director of the Defending Digital Democracy Project at the bipartisan Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, where she led a team of experts that helped to create strategies to assist those working to protect elections. She then served as a director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council during the Biden administration. In 2023, Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs added Conley to a list of U.S. citizens barred from entering the country, part of a broader set of entry bans it imposed in response to what it described as the Biden administration's anti-Russia actions. The New York Times attributed the ban to her counterterrorism work on the National Security Council. In the run-up to the election, she was a frequent public voice for the agency, describing the election cycle as facing "the most complex threat landscape we've seen for an election cycle" while describing U.S. election infrastructure as more secure than in any previous cycle. On the morning of the election, Conley reported no evidence that malicious activity had materially affected the security or integrity of the election process.

2026 congressional campaign Conely announced her candidacy for New York's 17th congressional district on March 24, 2025.

In the Democratic primary held in June 2026, Conley won with about 49 percent of the vote, defeating four other candidates in the primary. Her campaign was endorsed by Congressman Pat Ryan (D-NY) and the political action committee Vote Vets, among others. Running as a national security-focused Democrat, Conley has emphasized homeland security and public safety, along with protecting Medicaid and Medicare and codifying abortion rights.

Election results