President Donald Trump’s decision to keep Rep. Elise Stefanik in Congress is the clearest sign yet that the political environment has become so challenging for Republicans that they don’t want to risk a special election even in safe, red seats.
A pair of April elections in deep-red swaths of Florida next week was supposed to improve the GOP’s cushion in the House and clear the path for Stefanik’s departure, until Trump said he didn’t “want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat.”
The decision to pull Stefanik’s nomination came as Republicans grew increasingly anxious about the race to fill the seat of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on April 1. Polling in the district, which Trump carried by 30 points, had tightened, and the president himself is hosting a tele-town hall there to try and bail out Republican Randy Fine.
An internal GOP poll from late March showed Democrat Josh Weil up 3 points over Fine, 44 to 41 percent, with 10 percent undecided, according to a person familiar with the poll and granted anonymity to discuss it. Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster, conducted the survey. That result spooked Republicans and spurred them to redouble efforts to ensure a comfortable win in the district, according to two people familiar with internal conversations.
Some Republican strategists said it’s not worth taking the risk of losing Stefanik’s sprawling northern New York seat, which Trump won by 20 points in 2024.
“Can they defend her seat? Absolutely. But why do you do that right now?” asked Charlie Harper, who was a top aide to former Rep. Karen Handel on her successful 2017 bid in a special election in Georgia.
Harper is not the only Republican making that calculation.
“If we’re far underperforming in seats Trump won by 30 then there’s obvious concern about having to chance special elections in seats Trump won by a lot less,” said one top GOP operative granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The juice is not worth the squeeze sweating them out.”
Republicans insist they would prevail in any race for Stefanik’s seat. National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Maureen O’Toole said the party would “win this seat in a special election and we’ll win it in a general election.”
In an appearance on Fox News on Thursday evening, Stefanik said the withdrawal of her nomination was “about stepping up as a team, and I am doing that as a leader.”
“I look forward to continue serving in different ways,” she added.
In Florida, Weil, the Democratic candidate, has raised $10 million, which has led to Elon Musk’s America PAC putting forward some last-minute cash for Fine, as well as Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis.
But that hasn’t stopped Democrats from saying Republicans are panicking, not just playing it safe.
Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster who was working for Blake Gendebien in the now-canceled special election in Stefanik’s seat, said “this is a Jamaal Bowman-style five alarm fire bell.”
“Again, you don’t have to take anyone’s word for it, just see how Republicans are acting,” McCrary said. “They were very blasé about opening up the seat and now on a full retreat.”
Democrats have been on a streak of success down ballot, narrowly winning a special election on Tuesday for state Senate in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in a district that Trump had won by 15 points in 2024. It included the more conservative parts of a county that only one Democratic presidential candidate, Lyndon Johnson in 1964, had won since the Civil War.
But any chance for Democrats to flip Stefanik’s seat would be an uphill battle. A poll in the district conducted last week, obtained by POLITICO, showed a Republican candidate up 16 points. Stefanik carried the district by 24 points in 2024 — a higher margin than Trump’s 20 point victory — and Republicans have 80,000 more registered voters than Democrats.
One veteran Republican consultant, granted anonymity to speak candidly, pointed to Republicans’ changing coalition of voters — many of whom Trump attracted — as a reason for recent struggles in special elections.
“Republicans have traditionally done well in off-year elections and special elections because our voter coalition is more traditionally engaged voters,” the consultant said. “And now we depend more on less engaged voters and we need our folks to turn out, and it is a good wake up call that we need to engage more.”
Brakkton Booker and Seb Starcevic contributed to this report.
