President Donald Trump asked his pick for UN Ambassador, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), to stay in the House on Thursday, March 27. What appeared to be a snap decision – Axios called it a “rug pull” – was presented as a matter of protecting the House GOP’s bottom line. With an already slim majority, Republicans can’t afford to risk losing any seats in special elections. But was the popular representative’s seat really at risk? As it turns out, it might have been.
Stefanik Stays in the House
“I have asked Elise, as one of my biggest Allies, to remain in Congress to help me deliver Historic Tax Cuts, GREAT Jobs, Record Economic Growth, a Secure Border, Energy Dominance, Peace Through Strength, and much more, so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” President Trump posted to Truth Social on Thursday. “With a very tight Majority, I don’t want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat. The people love Elise and, with her, we have nothing to worry about come Election Day. There are others that can do a good job at the United Nations.”
Rep. Stefanik had already faced pressure to remove herself from consideration for the ambassador job in order to safeguard the House majority. Others pushed for her to resign from the House to smooth the way for her replacement and to remove any question about whether she would actually need to be replaced. Then there’s the Senate. While the rest of Trump’s picks have mostly been confirmed quickly and with little drama, and despite the fact Stefanik was expected to sail easily through the confirmation vote when it came, the upper chamber has slow-walked the process out of concern for – you guessed it – the House majority.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced shortly after the president’s post that he would reintegrate her into the party’s leadership. How, exactly, remains unclear. Stefanik was previously the Republican conference chair – making her the number four House Republican – but she didn’t run again for that position last December because of her nomination.
“I will invite her to return to the leadership table immediately,” Johnson posted on X. With all the conventional roles already filled, however, there’s some speculation about whether Johnson will have to create a new honorary leadership position to house her.
The Progressive Spin Cycle
Democrats, it seems, have finally found an issue on which they agree with Trump – that Stefanik’s seat may be in jeopardy – and they’re tickled at the news. Even if pulling her nomination means they don’t get a crack at replacing her, it still presents a perfect opportunity for some anti-GOP propaganda.
“Republicans and Donald Trump knew they were on track to lose the special election because of their deeply unpopular, disastrous agenda,” Courtney Rice, communications director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told the press.
“Donald Trump won the Elise Stefanik district by 21 points in November 2024. He withdrew her nomination to be U.N. Ambassador because the extremists are afraid they will lose the special election to replace her,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in a statement. “The Republican agenda is extremely unpopular, they are crashing the economy in real time and House Republicans are running scared. What happened to their so-called mandate?”
Checking the Math
But one question lingers: Was her seat – and with it, the GOP majority in the House – ever really at risk? Rep. Stefanik was first elected to lead New York’s 21st District in 2014 with 55.1% of the vote – the lowest she ever got in any of the five elections that followed, often hitting 60%+. Furthermore, in 2024 – a year in which Stefanik defeated Democrat Paula Collins 62% to 38% – Trump also won her district, as Rep. Jeffries pointed out, by 21 points.
Back in 2017, Pew Research Center released a study showing that US House seats rarely flip in special elections. According to the report, "[O]f the 130 House special elections since 1987, only 21 (16%) resulted in a seat changing from Republican to Democrat or vice versa – the last one nearly five years ago.” But while the past is often prologue … sometimes it isn’t. And there are other factors at play regarding both Stefanik’s seat and the GOP’s margin in general.
It's unclear just who would be chosen by the Republican Party to run in the special election to replace Stefanik. According to Fox News, which cites two anonymous sources in the know, at least two candidates are problematic. One is threatening to run on a third-party ticket if not chosen, and the other – who the sources say has been endorsed by the New York Conservative Party – “never supported Trump.”
While Stefanik has had little trouble defeating Democratic challengers over the years, what happens if she leaves the House and a special election sees a strong Democrat facing off against a party pick who isn’t on board the Trump train and a third-party conservative who is?
Complicating matters for the House, there’s now worry about another special election. Mike Waltz won the 2024 general election in Florida’s Sixth District handily, beating Democrat James Stockton 66.5% to 33.5%. But then he was appointed national security advisor, and a special election had to be called to replace him. On April 1, Democrat Joshua Weil, Republican Randy Fine, Libertarian Andrew Parrott, and a pair of unaffiliated candidates, Randall Terry and Chuck Sheridan, will face the electorate to see who replaces Waltz.
The primaries looked good for the GOP; Fine won his party’s nomination with 33,901 out of just over 40,000 votes, while Weil grabbed 9,721 of just over 16,000 votes for the Democrats. That doesn’t bode well for the blue team. But then the Signal debacle happened, and folks started calling for Waltz to resign. Making matters worse for Republicans, the latest data shows Weil has out-fundraised Fine $9.7 million to $561,000. GOP leaders say they’re confident they’ll still keep the seat – but those numbers have them understandably nervous.
Should Democrat Joshua Weil take Florida’s Sixth District from Republicans, it would trim an already narrow House majority. Would the House GOP majority be in danger if Elise Stefanik joined the Trump administration? The president, at least, seems to believe there’s too much at stake to risk finding out.
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