U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik launched her campaign for governor in November after teasing a run against Gov. Kathy Hochul for months. On Friday, she pulled the plug and also said she would not seek reelection to the House.
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Stefanik rallied support from her campaign from Republicans across the state, including about three-quarters of the party’s county chairs.
Will Waldron/Times Union
Stefanik has not been shy about her close relationship with President Donald J. Trump, who nominated her earlier this year to be ambassador to the United Nations. Trump rescinded the nomination in March, citing the need to preserve the razor-thin GOP majority in the House.
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Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman announced his campaign for governor earlier this month, challenging Stefanik for their party’s nomination.
Jim Franco/Times Union
ALBANY — U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik will suspend her campaign for governor of New York and leave her seat in Congress at the end of 2026, she confirmed to the Times Union on Friday.
In an interview with columnist Chris Churchill, Stefanik cited a difficult political climate and a primary challenge from Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman as the primary reasons for her decision not to move forward with her challenge to Gov. Kathy Hochul — a campaign that was previewed for several months before being formally announced after last month’s general election.
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“In a traditionally blue state like New York, you sort of have to have all the stars aligned politically,” Stefanik said, “and it’s just my read that it’s going to be a challenge — especially given this primary (challenge).”
Stefanik’s decision clears the path for Blakeman to become the Republican nominee in next year’s race unless another GOP candidate emerges. That’s considered unlikely at this point.
It’s the second time in the past year that Stefanik has had to back out of her pursuit of a position outside Congress: She was first set to leave office in the spring after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump, just days after his reelection, to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, an entity that she previously described as “a deep den of antisemitism.”
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But her confirmation was delayed by several special elections in the U.S. House that left the GOP’s narrow majority at least temporarily drawn down. The nomination was withdrawn by Trump in March because he and other Republicans feared losing their slim majority over Democrats.
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Those fears could become even more acute next year.
During her first congressional run in 2014, Stefanik pledged to serve not more than five terms in the House, but sought a sixth term in 2024. “Because I was in leadership, and it was such an important presidential campaign, I made the decision, as well as other leaders, that we weren’t going to retire and I wasn’t going to retire and continued through that,” she told Churchill on Friday.
After the disappointment of the scuttling of her U.N. nomination, Stefanik pivoted quickly to set her sights on the race for governor, first expressing interest in her party’s nomination in April. Republicans hadn’t yet coalesced around a candidate at that point.
She spent the next several months targeting Hochul’s decisions and positions on policy — tagging her as the “worst governor in America” — while quietly building the infrastructure for a campaign against the incumbent.
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“Elise Stefanik has finally acknowledged reality: If you run against Gov. Kathy Hochul, you are going to lose.,” Hochul campaign spokesman Ryan Radulovacki said Friday.
Ahead of her formal launch last month, Stefanik managed to secure promised endorsements from three-quarters of the Republican county chairs across New York and several local and state elected officials. She was even able to line up an endorsement from state Republican Chair Edward F. Cox on the day her campaign was announced — a clear signal from the GOP establishment that other contenders should back off.
That all happened before rumors began to fly about Blakeman’s ambitions for the office, which he said he hadn’t seriously considered seeking until his reelection as county executive last month in politically mixed Nassau County.
“It was such a stunning victory that I was getting calls that night from business leaders, community leaders (and) political leaders,” Blakeman told reporters in Albany when he began publicly mulling a campaign in November.
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Cox said Friday that Stefanik will remain a presence in Republican politics and that the party should now pivot to rally behind Blakeman.
“Elise Stefanik will remain a leader in our party and a powerful voice for our principles. We respect her decision and thank her for her efforts,” Cox said. “Bruce Blakeman has my endorsement and I urge our State Committee and party leaders to join me.”
Blakeman has framed himself as better positioned to take on Hochul. “I think that I would be a better candidate because, in a county with 110,000 more Democrats, I won by over 36,000 votes,” he said in an interview with WRGB this month.
Blue wave coming?
Republicans have viewed next year’s election for governor as their strongest chance at winning statewide for the first time in more than two decades. The last Republican to hold statewide office was Gov. George Pataki, who departed at the end of 2006.
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In 2022, former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin — now the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — came closer than previous Republicans to winning the statehouse: When he was the Republican nominee in 2022, Hochul won by less than 7 percent. And the party had a strong performance in last year’s elections, when more voters in all but one county in New York voted for President Donald J. Trump than they did in 2020.
But that calculation has become complicated after Democrats scored a series of historic wins in last month’s elections, both within and beyond New York. Democrats won what were expected to be tight races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia by wide margins.
In New York, Democrats flipped several seats long-held by Republicans, resulting in Democratic control of the Onondaga County Legislature, where Republicans had held the majority for the past five decades.
Democrats view those results as a referendum on Trump as he concludes the first year of his second term in office with poll numbers that are, in general, sagging.
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Neither Blakeman nor Stefanik — self-described as “ultra-MAGA” despite her early-career doubts about Trump — has been shy about their close ties with Trump. Blakeman hosted him in Nassau County last year for a rally that brought thousands to Long Island in support of his campaign.
That could pull votes from Blakeman in areas of the state where Trump is unpopular, including New York City, where a progressive wave swept Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani into office.
A new poll from the Siena Research Institute released earlier this week concluded that only 14% of voters in New York City — and 25% statewide — would choose Blakeman over Hochul at this point in the race.
Those numbers could change if Blakeman is able to reach more voters. He placed his first television ad of the campaign this week.
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If he remains the only Republican in the race, Blakeman is expected to claim his party’s nomination when delegates convene early next year. Hochul faces her own primary challenge from Lt. Gov. Anthony Delgado, though he trails her by a significant margin in polling.
In her interview with Churchill, Stefanik described her decision in personal terms as well as political context.
“My son is 4 years old; he is in pre-K at a local school and I’m traveling back and forth when Washington is in session and then back home,” she said. “These are precious years in a child’s life, and they go by quickly and you don’t get these years back. … So this is a decision that we are very confident and comfortable with in our family.”
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While her future after next year remains uncertain, she has authored a book set to be released next year, “Poisoned Ivies,” about her views on the country’s ivy league universities, which she’s repeatedly criticized.
“I’m at peace with this decision,” Stefanik said, “and I’m very grateful for the people of this district and what an amazing, amazing experience it has been to serve at the highest levels on behalf of so many communities and so many families, to make a real impact on local issues as well as on really important national and international issues.”