Rep. Elise Stefanik, the onetime average Republican turned staunch MAGA ally of President Donald Trump, announced on Friday that she is running for governor of New York.
Stefanik’s entry into the race units up what’s more likely to be one of the carefully watched elections of the 2026 marketing campaign season.
Within the lead-up to the launch of her marketing campaign, Stefanik had been relentlessly attacking incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), calling her “the Worst Governor in America,” seizing on her endorsement of New York Metropolis Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
“Now greater than ever, New Yorkers want a powerful test and steadiness within the Governor’s Workplace to counterbalance jihadist terrorist sympathizer Commie Mamdani,” Stefanik wrote on X, becoming a member of the refrain of Islamophobic assaults Mamdani has confronted from right-wing pundits.
Her marketing campaign video announcement on Friday strengthened that theme.
“I’m operating for Governor to make New York reasonably priced and secure FOR ALL. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents will unify to save lots of our state. It’s time to: FIRE HOCHUL. SAVE NEW YORK,” she wrote within the caption.
Her two-and-a-half-minute video didn’t reference Trump in any respect.
However Hochul made certain to focus on her robust ties to Trump in a supercut posted on social media.
“Elise Stefanik is operating to ship New York for Donald Trump and lift your prices,” Hochul wrote. ”Not on my watch. My message to Trump’s ‘high ally’ — deliver it on.”
In the meantime, New York GOP chair Ed Cox made clear the occasion is united behind Stefanik, noting there “is not going to be a Republican main in a 12 months from now.”
“She is the warrior we have to lead the struggle in opposition to Democrats’ corrupt Albany machine,” Cox stated in a statement.
New York hasn’t had a GOP governor in practically 20 years, with George Pataki being the final Republican to carry the submit from 1995 to 2007.
Stefanik, an alum of the George W. Bush administration who additionally helped former Home Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in his preparation for the vice presidential debate in opposition to Joe Biden in 2012, gained her first Home race in 2014, making historical past because the youngest girl ever elected to the U.S. Congress on the time.
Whereas she entered politics as a average Republican, she went on to completely embrace Trump, endorsing him in 2016 after he grew to become the occasion’s nominee.
She has stood by him ever since, voting in opposition to his impeachment and was additionally one of many 147 Republican lawmakers who voted in opposition to certifying Joe Biden’s victory within the 2020 race on Jan. 6, 2021, pushing his debunked election falsehoods.
In 2022, she became the first Republican, and the highest-level one, to endorse Trump’s 2024 presidential bid, whereas most Republicans blamed him for the occasion’s lackluster efficiency in that 12 months’s midterm elections.
She was additionally reportedly on Trump’s vice-presidential shortlist final 12 months earlier than he settled on JD Vance.
However whereas Stefanik appeared poised to be rewarded for her loyalty to Trump, being picked to function the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, he withdrew her nomination over considerations that Republicans might lose her seat in a particular election, additional limiting their already-small majority within the Home of Representatives.
