President Donald Trump attends a bill signing ceremony with members of the 1980 U.S. Men’s Olympic Hockey team and North Country Rep Elise Stefanik on Dec. 12, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press
ALBANY — When Republican Lee Zeldin ran for governor in 2022, Joe Biden was one of his best assets.
Biden’s approval rating just before the election sat at about 43%, with many voters angry at the Democratic president’s handling of inflation, the border and more. As he faced off against Gov. Kathy Hochul, an incumbent, Zeldin was able to capitalize on Biden’s unpopularity and hang it around Hochul’s neck.
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He still lost, of course, but the 6% margin was closer than many expected.
Heading into next year’s governor’s race, Republicans will have no such advantage.
As I write this, Donald Trump’s job approval is at 43.6% nationally, according to the Real Clear Politics average, and he’s all the more unpopular in New York. Even if Trump’s approval rating holds steady or rises, the new presumed Republican candidate, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, won’t have the advantage Zeldin enjoyed, making his task that much harder.
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In a way, that’s part of the normal ebb and flow of politics. It’s usually tough for the party that holds the White House to succeed in midterm elections.
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But Trump makes overcoming that even harder because, as shown by his dealings with U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, the president is an especially difficult ally.
As you are certainly aware by now, Stefanik dropped out of the governor’s race on Friday, telling me in an interview that day that the time was not right politically. She also said that she will not seek reelection to Congress.
In the hours after, much of the reaction focused on Trump, with the New York Times, for example, claiming in a headline that the president “jilted” Stefanik, even though she “had tried everything to please” him. Yeah, that headline is written differently if Stefanik is a male candidate, methinks, and the analysis overstates the role Trump’s personal relationship with Stefanik played in her decision.
Sure, Trump never endorsed Stefanik — and yet he quickly endorsed Blakeman once she got out, a move that will likely keep U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler from entering the race. In other words, Trump granted Blakeman a favor he had never given Stefanik, which seems more than a little disloyal given her steadfast loyalty to him.
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Yet a source close to Stefanik says she never explicitly asked for Trump’s endorsement. Meanwhile, several news outlets have reported that Trump urged Blakeman not to run — Blakeman’s camp disputes the claim — and that the president was likely to endorse Stefanik once she’d secured the party’s official nomination in the upcoming convention.
So why did Stefanik drop out?
Stefanik, 41, determined that winning the race was a near impossibility and that, unlike Blakeman, who is 70, she had too much to lose.
While I should be clear that Stefanik did not blame Trump when we spoke, it is obvious that any Republican nominee will go into the race having to answer questions about the economic impact of tariffs, unjust deportations and, just for good measure, the latest bit of presidential lunacy on Truth Social.
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I mean, sure, Biden was unpopular, but he wasn’t offering up horrific opinions on the murder of popular movie directors.
Good luck with that, Mr. Blakeman.
It is probably more surprising that Stefanik is leaving Congress. Remember, though, that she lost her leadership position when Trump nominated her to be U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and then withdrew it — another example of his disloyalty to loyalty.
And then there’s the family stuff. I know it’s easy to be cynical when politicians cite their families as reasons for some decision or another, and often it really is baloney. Given what I read in my inbox, I also understand that Stefanik inspires more cynicism than most politicians, a fact for which she’s hardly blameless.
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Nevertheless, Stefanik’s young child is now attending school, and I do believe she genuinely wants a job that allows her to return home most nights. From a parenting perspective, dividing her time between Washington and the sprawling 21st Congressional District is not easy.
It is, of course, entirely possible that Trump saves the day for Stefanik with a choice job before her congressional term ends next year. It is also possible that Stefanik’s time away from elected office proves short and that she runs for another job soon.
But the headache of running for governor of New York as a Republican while Donald Trump is president? Well, that’s Blakeman’s chore now.
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