Who is Rep. Elise Stefanik?
Wholeheartedly for Trumpism
NEW YORK — In 2014, upstate New York Rep. Elise Stefanik made history as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress at age 30.
Her upstart campaign came with a promise that she’d be a free-thinking Republican, open to bipartisanship and socially liberal policies. “We are here tonight because you believed that Washington is ready for fresh ideas and a new generation of leadership,” she told supporters at an election night party in upstate Glens Falls on Nov. 4, 2014.
But the Albany native’s political pitch took a sharp turn to the right after Donald Trump crash-landed into the White House.
Since the ex-president’s 2016 election, Stefanik has undergone a slow but steady political transformation that culminated Wednesday in her becoming the presumed nominee to replace Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney after her ouster as GOP Conference Chair, the third highest-ranking position for House Republicans.
Party leaders picked Stefanik as the only candidate for the No. 3 opening — with a vote expected Friday to seal the deal — because, unlike Cheney, she has devoted herself wholeheartedly to Trumpism.
To Trump’s delight, Stefanik has amplified his false claim that the 2020 election was rigged for President Joe Biden — even though it influenced a farright mob to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The fourterm congresswoman also voted to invalidate Biden’s victory in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot despite a total lack of evidence of election fraud.
Adding to her Trumpian accolades, she voted against both of Trump’s impeachments while embracing his combative, liberal-bashing rhetoric, slamming Democrats and feds investigating him as purveyors of a “witch hunt.”
But it wasn’t always that way.
An alum of the George W. Bush administration, Stefanik supported former Ohio Gov. John Kasich in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, and only begrudgingly backed Trump after he won the nomination.
Stefanik, now 36, has also largely made good on her original pledge of acrossthe-aisle cooperation, ranking as one of the most bipartisan members of the past two Congresses in terms of her voting record.
According to CQ Vote Watch, she actually voted with Trump less than 70% of the time in 2019 and 2020 — the seventh-lowest score in the GOP — and opposed his signature 2017 tax cuts, joined Democrats in trying to block him from pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord and opposed his troop draw-down in Syria.
By contrast, Stefanik has voted with Biden 18.8% of the time since his inauguration, according to a FiveThirtyEight tracker. Only 20 other Republicans in Congress have voted with Biden more frequently.
Additionally, Stefanik used to co-chair the Tuesday Group, a caucus of centrist Republicans, many of whom have clashed with Trump.
Stefanik’s pro-Trump persona — which she began to fully embrace after becoming a leading voice against his first impeachment in 2019 — appears to be a reflection of her constituents.
Her district, which spans from Albany’s outer suburbs to the Canadian border, voted overwhelmingly for Trump in both 2016 and 2020 after supporting Democratic presidential candidates for over two decades.
She has capitalized on Trump’s popularity with her voters.
After centering her reelection bid last year around an endorsement from the ex-president, Stefanik raised $1.2 million over the first three months of 2021, campaign records show. She has another $2.5 million on hand, according to the records, providing her with a sizable war chest well ahead of the 2022 midterms.