Key Facts
- Elise Stefanik is a Republican member of the House of Representatives representing an area near Albany, New York.
- Her outspoken defense of Donald Trump has led many to speculate that she’s a top candidate to be chosen as his vice-presidential candidate.
- Trump’s niece Mary has called Stefanik a liar & gaslighter, while Liz Cheney called her “a total crackpot.”
With convincing wins in the first two states to begin selecting a nominee, former president Donald Trump appears to be on his way to wrapping up a spot on the Republican ticket, to challenge President Joe Biden in November.
With the top spots looking all but decided, speculation will now focus on who Trump will choose as his running mate. Among the likely candidates include South Carolina senator Tim Scott, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for the presidential nomination, and then endorsed Trump over Nikki Haley in South Carolina. Also on the list is outspoken Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime Trump supporter, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, former HUD secretary Ben Carson, and Arizona politician Kari Lake.
Moving up the list rapidly, however, is New York Representative Elise Stefanik.
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Who Is Elise Stefanik?
The 39-year-old Stefanik represents an area of upstate New York, near Albany. When first voted into the House, in 2014, she set a record (since broken by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.
Originally considered one of the most moderate Republicans in the House, Stefanik has steadily moved to the right, and has steadily moved toward the Trump camp. When he first ran in 2016, she refused to even say his name, vowing to “support the Republican candidate” in November.
This year, she has been actively campaigning for Trump in New Hampshire and gave a full-throated endorsement of him and his policies on Meet the Press in early January, with panelists on the show saying later in the hour that she “brought the thunder” in her fiery appearance, ripping the “biased media” and calling imprisoned January 6 rioters “hostages”.
Rising Stature
Stefanik earned headlines last year for her role in the Congressional hearings on antisemitism in U.S. colleges. She is on the subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training. After the Hamas attacks in Israel in October, and unrest on college campuses around the country, the committee held hearings, bringing in the presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT to testify on antisemitism at their schools.
Stefanik, a Harvard alum, aggressively questioned the presidents, attempting to pin down their opinions on the issue.
“Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?” Stefanik asked, repeating the question as Penn president Liz Magill attempted to dodge the question by giving a qualified non-answer. Finally, Stefanik said, “I am asking, specifically calling for the genocide of Jews. Does that constitute bullying and harassment?”
Magill replied, “If it is directed and severe, it is harassment.”
“So the answer is yes?” asked Stefanik.
“It is a context-dependent decision,” Magill replied.
“This is the easiest question to answer. Yes, Ms. Magill. So is your testimony that you will not answer yes? Yes or no?”
When Magill again sidestepped the answer, Stefanik said, “The answer is yes.”
When Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, similarly refused to give a yes/no answer, Stefanik concluded by saying, “It does not depend on the context the answer is yes, and this is why you should resign. These are unacceptable answers across the board.”
Facing backlash from donors and the board, Magill resigned a short time later, causing Stefanik to tweet, “One down, two to go.” Gay at first survived a similar backlash but later resigned after evidence that she committed plagiarism surfaced.
Is She Trump’s Pick?
Stefanik checks several boxes on the list of attributes Trump is believed to be seeking in a running mate. His appeal to female voters has been very low, leading to speculation that he is likely to pick a female vice-presidential candidate. Trump also values loyalty, and her performance on the Sunday political shows and her campaigning in New Hampshire on Trump’s behalf have earned her a stamp of approval there.
Her attacks on the liberal college presidents have also caught the former president’s eye.
“She’s a killer,” he is reported to have told friends at a meeting at Mar-a-Lago on who he should choose to run with.
“Stefanik is at the top,” said Steve Bannon, a Republican insider and former Trump strategist.
Critics
Trump has a large number of critics, and, with Stefanik’s rise as a potential running mate, she’s also faced similar criticisms.
Mary Trump, niece of the former president and an outspoken critic of his, ripped Stefanik recently, calling her the “top gaslighter” of the Republican party and calling her a liar after Stefanik sent a tweet blaming President Biden for Trump’s defamation trial. Mary Trump concluded her rebuke of Stefanik by calling her an “immature twit.”
Liz Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman who served on the committee that investigated the January 6 riots, also criticized Stefanik, saying, “One day she will have to explain how and why she morphed into a total crackpot. History, and our children, deserve to know.”
Bottom Line
Trump has said that he won’t pick a running mate until closer to the Republican convention, but Stefanik has made her name as a legitimate candidate for the spot on the ticket. Her performance, along with the performances of the other leading candidates, on what remains of the campaign trail will likely determine which direction Trump chooses to go.
