Starring Congresswoman Elise Stefanik. Special guest appearances by Donald J. Trump and Mike Johnson. Cameos: Congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, and Anna Luna.
Make some popcorn and enjoy the show.
The story begins with Ms. Stefanik as a young woman, the daughter of a wealthy family. As such she is admitted to, attends, and graduates from top-of-the-line Harvard University.
After several years of doing this and that including a job in the Bush White House, Elise chooses to run for the House of Representatives from a northern New York district. It’s a mostly rural district well-stocked with registered Republicans, making her election pretty easy. She was considered a moderate Republican when she first ran.
Then in 2017 , after just two years in Congress, her life changed forever. Yes, she got married that year, but the really big event was the inauguration of Donald Trump. For reason not ever really explained she moved far to the political right and tethered her dingy to Trump.
As a Trump sycophant Stefanik no longer had to think for herself about what she wanted to do for the country, much less for her congressional district. Whatever Trump’s stance was on anything was her stance. It made life simple.
After just six years in the House Elise was selected for a leadership position with her party’s caucus, becoming chair of the House Republican Conference, the fourth ranking spot. She replaced Conservative Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who had the termitary to speak out against Trump.
Stefanik used the new position to improve her national profile. She raised millions of dollars for herself and the party. Her aggressive style got her noticed. She was given a starring role in attacking the leaders of many prominent universities, including her alma mater.
Then Trump ran for president again. Elise was mentioned for vice president but was passed over by another Ivy Leaguer, a guy with a short political resume and a beard. As a consolation prize she was nominated by Trump to serve as United States Ambassador to the United Nations on January 20, 2025.
That nomination was withdrawn just nine weeks later, supposedly because House Republicans needed her to preserve their narrow majority. The thing is her seat would have been quickly backfilled with another north country Republican if she had left.
Since she was remaining in Congress House Republicans came up with a new title for Stefanik that looked like it was part of the leadership team. The New York Times recently quoted an anonymous “senior Republican congressional aide” as saying that she was given a “fake job with a fake title.”
Adding insult to injury Trump subsequently nominated Michael Waltz for the United Nations assignment. Waltz, a former congressman, was the organizer of the infamous Signalgate scandal that erupted last March and featured Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
So poor Elise Stefanik was left with a whole lot of nothing. House leadership did allow her to reprise her congressional hearing attack style on several additional university presidents this year even though she wasn’t a member of the Committee that was conducting the hearing.
Stefanik let it be known she was available to run as the Republican candidate for governor of New York in 2026. The party in the state has a limited bench of other potential candidates for state office that would rival the New York Jets roster. They immediately latched on to Stefanik for governor. She comes with a pile of money in her congressional campaign treasury ($10.3 million as of the most recent accounting) and her politically diminished star power.
But recently things began to get a bit crazy. She attacked Speaker Mike Johnson. She told the Wall Street Journal that Johnson is an “ineffective leader… He certainly wouldn’t have the votes to be speaker if there was a roll call vote tomorrow. I believe that the majority of Republicans would vote for new leadership.” She echoed Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attacks on Johnson.
Stefanik subsequently aligned herself with Congresswoman Anna Luna on a House discharge petition that would embarrass Johnson. Another member of the House, Nancy Mace, who is running for governor in South Carolina has rallied with Stefanik against the Speaker.
Here’s a side note to all of this: according to local reporting Stefanik has retained political attack dog specialist Chris Grant for her campaign staff. Grant has made his reputation with congressional campaigns around the country. How might House Republican campaign leadership view Grant’s participation in their congressional campaigns in the 2026 elections if he has signed on with a candidate who says that “Johnson is an ineffective leader.”
Anyway, Stefanik is off and running for governor. As someone who has been totally aligned with Trump, how does she sell Trump’s policies to the voters of New York? Many issues stand out:
- Tax cuts that favor millionaires and billionaires
- Impending cuts in Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act that remove health care coverage from more than a million New Yorkers
- Threatened cuts to SNAP
- The destruction of basic safety features built into medical care as settled science with that work replaced with the whack-a-mole policies of Robert Kennedy Jr.
- The end of countless programs designed to preserve and protect the environment
- The deconstruction of federal education programs, particularly in the areas of mental health and special needs services
- The bizarro war-mongering policies that Trump dreams up
And then there was the one final Trump stab in the back for Stefanik: his most gracious visit with New York Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani. How does that now play with her plans to spend most of 2026 attacking Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul’s relationship with him?
So it’s poor, poor Elise Stefanik: she has tied herself to Donald Trump, forgetting that Trump, above everything else, is only looking out for himself.
And now, this just in. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman is planning to run a primary against Stefanik. As this blog noted a couple weeks ago, no one expected Carl Paladino to defeat Rick Lazio in the 2010 Republican primary for governor.
So politicos, settle into a comfortable chair. The 2026 feature show is about to begin.
Bluesky @kenkruly
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