Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik said Friday that she was ending her campaign for New York governor, a surprising move that comes just weeks after she officially jumped into the race, while also announcing that she will not seek reelection to the U.S. House after serving for a decade.
The move culminates a year of political whiplash for Stefanik, 41, once the most powerful woman in the House GOP and a moderate who later allied herself closely with President Donald Trump and the MAGA ethos. Stefanik was initially the president’s choice for U.N. ambassador, but that nomination was quickly pulled over concerns about what Stefanik’s departure would mean for the GOP’s frail House majority. Stefanik went on to mount her New York gubernatorial bid — but Trump repeatedly declined to endorse her campaign.
The Republicans’ bid to unseat Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in November became messier when Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a longtime ally of Trump, unexpectedly jumped into the race.
In a post shared on X, Stefanik said that while she believes she would have “overwhelmingly won” in the Republican gubernatorial primary, “it is not an effective use of our time or your generous resources to spend the first half of next year in an unnecessary and protracted Republican primary, especially in a challenging state like New York.”
The congresswoman did not reply to a message seeking comment. Stefanik hinted in her online post that she also had personal reasons for leaving the race, saying she wanted to spend more time with her son, who was born in 2021.
A person close to Stefanik, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss private conversations, told The Washington Post that Stefanik had initially held back from announcing her gubernatorial bid out of respect for the Nassau County GOP, “to ensure the focus stayed on local races.” The official chided Blakeman for entering the gubernatorial primary, which set up a competitive race at a time, the official argued, when the state GOP should remain united in such a Democratic-leaning state.
“His determination to tank the Republican Party’s chances in the general election are not only disgraceful, they are selfish when the stakes are so very high for the people of New York,” the person said.
Blakeman did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but he acknowledged Stefanik’s decision in a fundraising post, saying that he is now the only Republican candidate in the race against Hochul. Rep. Michael Lawler, a moderate House Republican, also briefly flirted with the idea of running for the nomination. He ultimately chose to run for reelection to the House with Trump’s blessing and endorsed Stefanik in the gubernatorial race.
Blakeman’s entry into the primary set up a tough decision for Trump, who said he hated to see Stefanik and Blakeman run against each other.
“He’s great, and she’s great. They’re both great people,” Trump said after Blakeman entered the primary.
Most notably, during an Oval Office appearance Friday with Stefanik standing right next to him, Trump said Stefanik was “running for a little position called governor of New York, and she’s got a hell of a shot at it,” without formally endorsing her.
“She’s got a little competition with a very good Republican, but she’s a great Republican,” Trump said. “So, we’ll see what happens.”
A White House official said Stefanik called Trump to tell him that she was dropping out of the race, a move that took the president by surprise.
“He said he knew she would win the primary but wanted to be respectful of Bruce since they have a longtime relationship,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely describe private conversations. “He was surprised and told her he knew she would win, but still very much adores and supports her.”
The lack of a full-throated Trump endorsement appeared especially disappointing for Stefanik, who was elected to the House in 2014 as a moderate but evolved into a fierce defender of the president, who, in turn, called her a “new Republican star.”
The party establishment quickly lined up behind Blakeman after Stefanik ended her campaign. The two would have probably engaged in a bruising primary to earn the support of the president’s base in the state, while then having to pivot to run in a Democratic-leaning state.
In 2022, Hochul defeated Republican Lee Zeldin — another New York moderate turned MAGA loyalist — in the gubernatorial election by six percentage points. George E. Pataki’s election to a third term in 2002 was the last time a Republican won the New York gubernatorial race.
Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-New York), a former chair of the New York Republican State Committee, told The Post that he doesn’t “begrudge” Stefanik’s decision to drop out of the gubernatorial race and decline a reelection bid.
“It’s a gargantuan task [to] try to run to the right in a primary for six months to then turn around and have to run into the headwinds of a midterm to try to win a state with 3 million more Democrats than Republicans, you have to be letter perfect,” he said. “It makes absolutely no sense to take that mission on.”
Stefanik’s rise slightly predated Trump’s accession to the heights of Republican politics and the growth of his MAGA-style brand of politics. Stefanik, however, quickly got on board, backing his 2016 campaign and becoming one of his strongest proponents in the House. She was one of the staunchest defenders of the president’s falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
In the House, Stefanik garnered extra political attention helming Republicans’ aggressive attacks against elite higher education institutions such as Harvard over their handling of antisemitism on their campuses in the wake of pro-Palestinian protests.
Stefanik rose quickly through the ranks of House Republicans, becoming the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference in 2021, making her the top woman in House GOP leadership. She stepped out of that role after she was nominated for U.N. ambassador. After that effort was withdrawn, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) appointed her as chair of House Republican Leadership — a new position that was lower ranking than her previous leadership role.
Since she launched her campaign for governor, Stefanik has publicly engaged in a spat with Johnson, calling the House leader a liar and “rudderless,” suggesting that Trump is the chamber’s controlling figure.
Democrats were quick to latch on to the split in the GOP’s gubernatorial primary.
“Just like Michael Lawler, Elise Stefanik saw the writing on the wall and knew she would lose — big — to Governor Hochul. The fact that two major candidates who planned to run against Governor Hochul have now called it quits tells you just how formidable the governor is,” Democratic Governors Association spokesperson Kevin Donohoe said in a statement.
Hochul’s spokesperson, Ryan Radulovacki, said in a statement that Stefanik “finally acknowledged reality: If you run against Governor Kathy Hochul, you are going to lose.” Calling Blakeman a “100% MAGA” candidate, Radulovacki added that Hochul’s message to him “or whichever lackey Trump picks to run against her is simple: Bring it on.”
The post Elise Stefanik ends bid for N.Y. governor and won’t run again for House appeared first on Washington Post.
