Dem
47
GOP
53
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is a very ambitious person, so much so that after building a career as a regular Republican, she completely remade herself as a MAGA Republican. This development was very related to her rapid rise in the ranks of the House Republican Conference; she replaced Liz Cheney as the #4 Republican in the House after Cheney was deemed disloyal.
Earlier this year, Stefanik learned what it was like to be on the other side of the shiv. She was nominated to be the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., and was thrilled at the upward mobility that promised (just ask first-Trump-term U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley). So, Stefanik did not run for reelection to her leadership post, and instead prepared to resign, with Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) replacing her as #4. Then, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) persuaded Donald Trump that it was just too risky to leave the seat open, and also to take the chance that it might be lost to the Democrats. Stefanik's district, NY-21 is R+10, and in special elections... well, stranger things have happened. So, Trump decided against the nomination, and Stefanik went from soon-to-be ambassador to backbencher overnight.
If Stefanik is to escape the backbenches once again, she has a few possibilities. She could wait until 2027, and try for a leadership position again. However, if the Republicans lose the House, everyone basically moves one spot down the ladder, and it's easy to be left without a seat in that particular game of musical chairs. Plus, being in the leadership of the minority party is not exactly a high-profile position. Other than Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), can you even name any other members of the Democratic leadership right now?
Alternatively, Stefanik could hope that another opportunity opens up in the Trump administration. However, that couldn't happen until 2027, at the earliest, given the "we can't leave the seat open" problem. Further, Trump is not experiencing anywhere near the level of turnover that he did during his first administration, so openings might be scarce. There's also the small matter that Trump expects many of his underlings to do things that are illegal, and Stefanik is smart enough to know that while he's not likely to pay a price, the underlings might.
That leaves Door #3, which is statewide office in New York. In 2026, only one office of the stature Stefanik feels is worthy of her talents is up, and that's the governorship. Like the 100 members of the Senate, when she looks in the mirror, she sees a president. And she's also clever enough to know that four governors of New York went on to become president (Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland and the Roosevelts), a bunch more went on to be either the VP or the presidential nominee of their party (Horatio Seymour, Samuel J. Tilden, Levi P. Morton, Charles Evans Hughes, Al Smith, Nelson Rockefeller, etc.), and one of them went on to record the funk classic "Atomic Dog" (Note to editor: check to make sure this is the same George Clinton). Plus, if the governor thing doesn't work out in 2026, she can still take a shot at the Senate in 2028, when Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is up.
In short, all signs point to a run for governor. And yesterday, several of Stefanik's senior aides, speaking off-the-record of course, "let slip" that she is going to announce a bid shortly after the New York City mayoral election concludes next week. It might take a while to sort things out, but not THAT long, because NYC doesn't use ranked choice voting for general elections (only primaries and special elections). So, she'll probably announce on Thursday, we would guess.
Stefanik will certainly have a few things going in her favor. She's got $13 million on hand, which is a fortune for a representative. For a gubernatorial candidate in New York, with its population and its expensive media markets, it's not a fortune, but it is a good start. She's also going to have the Trump machine backing her, including several of his key people, like pollster Tony Fabrizio. Assuming Stefanik wins the nomination, she'll likely face Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), who is not too popular. Siena College has been regularly running polls where they pit Hochul against "anyone else," and "anyone else" consistently beats Hochul by 15-25 points. That said, Stefanik will not run against Hochul as much as she will run against (probable) Mayor Zohran Mamdani. She will attack him left, right and sideways for being Muslim/antisemitic, for being a communist/socialist/Marxist and for being an immigrant/un-American. It will be ugly.
That said, there are also some pretty big challenges for Stefanik. Again, New York is pretty blue (D+8), and it's elected just one Republican to the governor's mansion in the last 50 years. That was George Pataki, who won three elections in the 1990s and early 2000s. Pataki was a moderate, and certainly not MAGA. Trump took 43% of the vote in the Empire State in 2024, 38% in 2020 and 37% in 2016. If you take the MAGA New Yorkers, and maybe add in some Jewish voters who respond to Stefanik's focus on antisemitism, and some independents who believe that Mamdani is a wild-eyed crazy man, does that make a winning coalition? The numbers are... rough for the soon-to-be-candidate. Especially if the Trump brand and/or the Republican brand are extra-toxic next year, which they might well be.
And that brings us back to polling. Since Stefanik was likely to jump in, the Hochul-Stefanik matchup has already been polled many times. While the Governor does badly against "anyone," she actually does fine against actual candidates (after all, respondents can make "anyone" into their dream candidate; they can't do that with an actual person). There have been three nonpartisan polls of the race, and Hochul led in all of them, by double digits in all cases. There have been four polls by Republican houses, and Hochul also led in three of those, although by single digits.
The most interesting poll is one that Hochul did NOT lead in. It was released this week, and is from the Manhattan Institute. It has Stefanik up by one point, 43% to 42%, which is obviously within the margin of error, but is also considerably worse than Hochul's other polls. Could it be a wonky sample? Or could it be that a Republican house makes Republican assumptions? Or could it be that Hochul really has fallen off? If so, there is one major event that might explain a steep decline over the last 2 weeks: She finally bit the bullet and started campaigning with Mamdani.
Now here is the problem with all of those theories, and the thing that makes the poll interesting. The Manhattan Institute also asked about Mamdani, and his numbers were... much better than they've been in any poll of that race since Eric Adams dropped out. They have Mamdani leading Andrew Cuomo by 15 points (43% to 28%); most other pollsters have the lead around 10 points. It is not too easy to explain why Mamdani's best poll would also be Stefanik's best poll. It's possible that Mamdani and Stefanik both represent insurgency and shaking up the status quo, and that there really are a bunch of Mamdani-Stefanik voters out there. We aren't particularly enamored of that theory, but we also don't have a better one. If it IS true, then the plan to run an anti-Mamdani campaign might not work out too well for Stefanik. In any case, this gubernatorial race is going to get a lot of oxygen, and a lot of attention from pollsters, once the NYC mayoralty has been decided.
Oh, and the leadership of the House Democratic Caucus is House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (MA), Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (CA) and Caucus Vice Chair Ted Lieu (CA). (Z)