Elise Stefanik

Elise Marie Stefanik ( stə-FAH-nik; born July 2, 1984) is an American politician who has served as the U.S. representative for New York's 21st congressional district since 2015. From 2021 to 2025, she served as chair of the House Republican Conference.

Stefanik was elected as a moderate Republican but moved towards the right after aligning herself with Donald Trump during his first term as president. Stefanik strongly opposed the first impeachment of Trump in 2019, which was based on the Trump–Ukraine scandal. She backed his attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, objecting to Pennsylvania's electoral votes. Stefanik was elected chair of the House Republican Conference in May 2021 after incumbent Liz Cheney was removed for opposition to then-former president Trump.

Known for her pro-Israel beliefs, Stefanik gained national attention in December 2023 for her aggressive questioning of university presidents during a widely televised U.S. congressional hearing on antisemitism, which contributed to the resignation of Liz Magill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania. Stefanik was awarded the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson Defender of Israel Award by the Zionist Organization of America. She has supported the view that Israel has a "biblical right" to the occupied West Bank.

In January 2025, President Trump nominated Stefanik to serve as the United States ambassador to the United Nations. Trump withdrew the nomination in March over concerns that her departure from the House would affect the thin House Republican majority. In November 2025, Stefanik announced her candidacy in the 2026 New York gubernatorial election. She ended her campaign the following month and announced she would not run for re-election to Congress.

Early life and education

Stefanik was born in Albany, New York, on July 2, 1984, to Melanie and Kenneth Stefanik. Stefanik states that her father is ethnically Czech and her mother is of Italian ancestry; genealogical records show that her father's Polish family came from western Galicia (at the time part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria), mainly from the then shtetl of Frysztak (Yiddish: Fristik; German: Freistadt) located near Jasło and Strzyżów. Her parents own a wholesale plywood distributor based in Guilderland Center, New York.

At the age of 14, Stefanik became involved in Republican politics and volunteered for the New York Republican State Committee. According to Stefanik, she first considered a career in public service and policy in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

In 2002, Stefanik graduated from the Albany Academy for Girls. She attended Harvard College, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 2006. In 2004, she was the vice president of the Student Advisory Committee at the Harvard Institute of Politics.

According to Rep. Henry Cuellar, as of August 2023, Stefanik, Jake LaTurner and he are enrolled in the master's in defense and strategic studies program at the Naval War College.

Early career

After graduating from Harvard, Stefanik joined the George W. Bush administration as a staff member for the U.S. Domestic Policy Council. Stefanik later worked in the office of Joshua Bolten, the White House chief of staff. In 2009, she founded the blog "American Maggie", a platform to promote the views of "conservative and Republican women". The blog was named after British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Stefanik helped prepare the Republican platform for the 2012 United States presidential election, served as director of new media for Tim Pawlenty's presidential exploratory committee, and worked at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and at Foreign Policy Initiative. She managed Rep. Paul Ryan's preparation for the 2012 vice presidential debate. After the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan ticket was defeated in the 2012 presidential election, she returned to upstate New York and joined her parents' business.

U.S. House of Representatives

First election

In August 2013, Stefanik declared her candidacy in the 2014 election for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York's 21st congressional district. The district had been in Republican hands for 100 years, before Democrat Bill Owens was elected to represent it in a 2009 special election. In January 2014, Owens announced that he would not seek reelection. Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party's congressional nominee in 2009, endorsed Stefanik.

Stefanik defeated Matt Doheny in the 2014 Republican primary election, 60.8% to 39.2%. She faced Aaron Woolf, the Democratic Party nominee, and Matt Funiciello, the Green Party nominee, in the November 4 general election. Stefanik won with 55.1% of the vote to their 33.8% and 11%, respectively. At the time, the 30-year-old Stefanik was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Stefanik's record was broken four years later by her fellow representative from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was elected at age 29.

Tenure

The freshman representatives of the 114th United States Congress elected Stefanik to serve as the freshman representative to the policy committee. In February 2015, she was appointed vice chair of the United States House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness.

On January 11, 2017, Stefanik announced that she had been elected co-chair of the Tuesday Group, "a caucus of ... moderate House Republicans from across the country".

Stefanik led recruitment for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) in the 2018 House elections; among 13 Republican women elected to the House, only one was newly elected. In December 2018, Stefanik announced she would leave the NRCC to create a "leadership PAC" dedicated to recruiting Republican women to run for office. This group, named Elevate PAC (E-PAC), announced in an October 22 press conference that it had partially funded the primary campaigns of 11 Republican women from various states. In the 2020 House elections, 18 of the 30 women endorsed by Stefanik's E-PAC were elected.

In 2020, Fortune magazine included Stefanik in its "40 Under 40" listing in the "Government and Politics" category.

On May 19, 2021, Stefanik and all other House Republican leaders voted against establishing a January 6 commission to investigate the January 6 United States Capitol attack. Thirty-five Republican House members and all 217 Democrats present voted to establish such a commission.

Stefanik announced in November 2025 that she would not seek re-election in 2026, and run for Governor of New York instead. The following month, she announced that she was ending her gubernatorial campaign, but did not change her mind on not seeking reelection to the House of Representatives.

Committee assignments

For the 119th Congress:

• Committee on Armed Services
  • Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation
  • Subcommittee on Military Personnel
  • Subcommittee on Strategic Forces
• Subcommittee on Education and Workforce
  • Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development
• Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
  • Subcommittee on Defense Intelligence and Overhead Architecture
  • Subcommittee on Open Source Intelligence

Party leadership campaign

In early 2021, after House Republican Conference chair Liz Cheney supported Donald Trump's second impeachment and refuted his claims that the election was stolen from him, some Republicans in Congress who supported Trump called for her removal. Stefanik was seen as a potential replacement for Cheney if the Republican conference decided to oust Cheney from her position, despite Cheney's more conservative credentials and greater voting record in support of Trump's policies. On May 5, Stefanik received the endorsement of Trump and House minority whip Steve Scalise to replace Cheney as conference chair. During a May 6 appearance on a podcast hosted by Steve Bannon, Stefanik repeatedly emphasized the need for the Republican Party to work with Trump. Representative Chip Roy challenged Stefanik from the right in a bid to replace Cheney, but was denounced by Trump, who reiterated his endorsement of Stefanik. On May 14, Stefanik was elected House Republican Conference chair. After her victory, Stefanik thanked Trump, saying, "President Trump is the leader that [Republican voters] look to".

A couple of weeks after being elected House Republican Conference chair, Politico reported that Stefanik had been responsible for planting negative stories about Jim Banks, a potential competitor for the job, and his aide Buckley Carlson, Tucker Carlson's son. This was met with displeasure by allies of Donald Trump Jr., who made it known to Stefanik that her attacks on Carlson's son had crossed a line.

After the 2022 elections, Stefanik was reelected as conference chair, defeating Byron Donalds.