Elise Stefanik’s change of stripes paves way for Republican glory

Elise Stefanik has become an outspoken advocate for gun rights, a moderate Republican turned MAGA-queen.

House Republican Conference chair Elise Stefanik. Picture: Getty Images

When the Supreme Court struck down a New York law on Friday AEST that had outlawed the carrying of guns outside the home without “proper” reasons, Fox News went to congresswoman Elise Stefanik for comment.

Little known outside the Washington beltway and her home state of New York, where in 2014 she, at 30, became the youngest woman elected to congress, Stefanik has become an outspoken advocate for gun rights, a moderate Republican turned MAGA-queen.

“It’s very important that we heard from the Supreme Court that when it comes to second amendment rights, these are inalienable natural rights, not ­bestowed by government,” she told the biggest cable network in the US, before slamming Joe Biden for record high inflation.

“My constituents typically have an hour commute each way, they are getting gutted … house Republicans are going to run on American energy independence,” she added, providing an insight into the political strategy her party intends to pursue in ­November when a “red wave” is expected to end Democrat control over both congressional chambers.

Stefanik, who represents a rural upstate New York district, ousted Liz Cheney, daughter of the former Republican vice-president Dick, to chair the Republican Conference in May last year, the third-highest ranking position among the 210 Republican members of the House of Representatives.

“She’s smart, is known to be a hard worker, and as the Republicans have fewer women in senior positions than the Dems, she is certainly someone to watch,” Karyln Bowman, a public opinion analyst and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, tells The Australian.

Cheney, who is now deputy chair of the January 6th committee investigating last year’s Capitol riots, had crossed Donald Trump, ending her career, for now at least, in the upper ranks of the party.

Donald Trump endorsed Elise Stefanik for the Republican Conference leadership. Picture: Getty Images

“Elise Stefanik is a far superior choice, and she has my ­COMPLETE and TOTAL endorsement for GOP Conference Chair,” Trump said in a statement before the vote.

Stewardship of the political brains trust of the congressional Republican party – the conference is a one-stop shop “talking points”, graphics and political ­advice – fell to Stefanik, now 37.

“She’s done a good, effective job running conference; to her credit it’s more organised than I’ve ever seen it before,” said one Republican staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Stefanik, from a small business family in upstate New York, was a consummate moderate Republican at the start of her congressional career.

A Harvard graduate who worked as a junior staffer in the Bush White House in 2006 after graduating, she had opposed the rise of Trump in the Republican Party in 2016, his aggressive style, and his proposal for a wall with Mexico.

Proudly bipartisan, she voted with Democrats against his signature 2017 tax cuts after he became president. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, Trump enemies, endorsed her for re-election.

But Stefanik has changed her political views.

“Some sort of switch went off around the first impeachment trial,” the staffer said, referring to the late 2019 failed impeachment of Trump, prompted by his ­alleged attempt to bribe Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to help him investigate the Biden family.

The political transformation of Stefanik, who voted in congress to overturn the 2020 election result, reflects the shifting base of the ­Republican Party during and after the Trump presidency.

The Reagan-Bush country club Republican establishment, which had little support from the white lower-income workers who have gravitated to Trump, has shrivelled. Trump won Stefanik’s 21st congressional district by double digit margins in 2016 and 2020.

“She saw which way the wind was blowing and now she’s considered hard right, but is it sincere? Or just for political advantage, I think always suspicious at these midnight conversions,” says Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia.

“She’s in the church of Donald Trump now, in the choir, singing whatever hymns are listed.”

Trump recently canvassed the idea of picking Stefanik as his vice-presidential running mate in a prospective 2024 re-election bid, according to conversations between CNN and multiple senior Republican sources.

“At this rate she’ll be president in about six years,” Trump quipped at a joint fundraiser in January.

Elise Stefanik with Republican house leader Kevin McCarthy. Picture: AFP

Stefanik earlier this week ­endorsed a controversial Republican for a neighbouring district, Carl Paladino, who had made ­racist comments about Barack Obama and last year said Adolf Hitler was “the kind of leader we need today”.

One of her Republican colleagues, congressman Chris Jacobs, backed out of his re-election bid in the November midterms after a backlash from Republican hardliners over his support for gun-control measures.

Stefanik by contrast has promised not to vote against the modest set of national gun-control measures agreed by a group of Republicans and Democrats this week, inching through congress in the wake of two massacres in Texas and Stefanik’s home state last month.

“She understands the base of the party, but at some point, as Trump loses air – and I think he is losing some – she could pivot again,” Bowman says.

In public Stefanik has refrained from revealing her political ambitions, declining to say whether she would throw her hat in the ring for Republican whip if Republicans win the chamber in November and Kevin McCarthy, house Republican leader, replaces Nancy Pelosi as Speaker.

Young, already senior in a party with relatively few women, and representing a safe Republican district, Stefanik is poised to thrive post November in an emboldened Republican party.

For now, only the collapse of Trump’s reputation among ­Republican would see her swap places again with Cheney.