House Republicans tab Stefanik for a top post
Move is latest example of party’s devotion to Trump
WASHINGTON — House Republicans elevated Rep. Elise Stefanik to a leadership post Friday, highlighting how the party whose lodestar has long been conservative policies increasingly views allegiance to Donald Trump as its indispensable key to electoral success.
Stefanik, a Trump stalwart from upstate New York, was elected to the No. 3 leadership job that until this week belonged to Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Republicans tossed Cheney from that post for continually calling out former President Trump for helping spur the violent Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and relentlessly pushing his false claims that voting fraud caused his November reelection defeat.
Local officials and judges from both parties around the country have declared there is no evidence Trump was cheated out of a win.
Stefanik easily defeated Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, 134-46 in a secret ballot that gave GOP lawmakers a distinct choice about where to steer the party. Stefanik has a moderate voting record but strong backing from Trump and other party leaders, including some conservatives, while Roy is in the hard-right House Freedom Caucus and was actively opposed by the former president.
In remarks to reporters after her victory, Stefanik underscored how the twice-impeached Trump’s clout within the GOP remains potent, a rarity for a defeated former president. Polling shows strong Trump loyalty among Republican voters, giving party leaders little incentive to ostracize him.
“Voters determine the leader of the Republican Party, and President Trump is the leader that they look to,” said Stefanik, 36. She added, “He is an important voice in the Republican Party and we look forward to working with him.”
While the GOP defines itself as conservative, Stefanik’s win provided one measure of the diminished role ideology now plays for Republicans.
Her lifetime voting score from the conservative Heritage Action for America is 48, one of the most moderate marks of all House Republicans. That compares to Cheney’s 80 and Roy’s 96.
The conservative Club for Growth, which backed Roy, gives Stefanik a lifetime mark of 35. That is well below Cheney’s 65 and Roy’s 100, and even beneath Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a member of the “squad” of young progressive House Democrats, who scored 38.
“I would support Stefanik to be the most likely Republican to join the Squad but not Republican Conference Chair,” tweeted Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., who nominated Roy Friday.
“Now, to have credibility in the Republican Party, you have to align yourself with Donald Trump. Everything else is secondary,” said former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., a Trump critic. He called that a short-term “survival strategy,” saying Trump’s appeal nationally is limited and will fade.
Republicans hope Stefanik will help shift attention from their acrimonious purge of the defiant Cheney, and toward their drive to win House control in the 2022 elections. A Trump loyalist who has stood by some of his unfounded claims about widespread election cheating, Stefanik’s elevation gives the GOP a fresh spokesperson who is one of the party’s relative handful of women in Congress.
“We are unified working as one team,” she said.
Yet GOP schisms are unlikely to vanish quickly. Roy’s candidacy signaled that hard-right conservatives will battle for influence, and tensions remain raw over Cheney’s rancorous ouster.
Three people familiar with Friday’s closed-door GOP meeting said Cheney was not seen. Her office did not reply to questions about her attendance.
She has said she’ll stay in Congress and use her prominence — as a GOP establishment pillar and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney — to try to pry her party from Trump and to work against him if he attempts a White House return in 2024.