How Elise Stefanik became a top contender to be Donald Trump’s vice president

This is part of The Hill’s ongoing series looking at Donald Trump’s potential vice presidential picks.

Representative Elise Stefanik (RN.Y.) has been constantly increasing in the ranks of the Republican Party for years, but it took an impromptu question about anti-Semitism on college campuses to send his public profile soaring.

“It wasn’t a prepared question,” Stefanik said in an interview with The Hill last month. “I wrote it in pencil five minutes ago.”

President of the Republican conference, Stefanik is one of the most influential women in her party and one of the few a handful of female candidates on former President Trump’s list potential running mates.

Although she has been a rising star in the Republican Party for a decade, the New York congresswoman has seen her name recognition grow considerably over the past two years.

In particular, Stefanik made headlines for interrogating university presidents following the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.

In December, she participated in the House Education and Workforce Committee hearing on anti-Semitism that emerged in the wake of the attacks.

Towards the end of the hearing, a junior member gave up his time to Stefanik. This period resulted in one of the most watched exchanges in the history of congressional hearings.

“Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules on bullying and harassment?” Stefanik asked the presidents of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania.

The three presidents did not give direct answers, which led to widespread condemnation from both sides of the aisle.

Stefanik said she was shocked by the university presidents’ responses.

The backlash prompted the presidents of Harvard and Penn to resign from their positions, but it also catapulted Stefanik, long seen as a rising Republican star, further into the spotlight and fueled speculation that she could be Trump’s choice for vice president in November.

Since then, Stefanik has made efforts to raise her profile globally as well as nationally.

In May, she became the highest-ranking House Republican to speak in the Knesset since the October 7 attacks in Israel. Stefanik criticized the Biden administration’s policy toward Israel during the speech, resulting in the White House’s response to the Republican’s comments.

The House Republican also made it her mission to increase the number of Republican women serving in Congress, establishing Elevate PAC, or E-PAC, in 2018. She made headlines that same year when she tweeted, “I wasn’t asking for permission,” in response to criticism from then-new National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) over his calls to get involved in primaries to help more Republican women get elected.

Stefanik has risen up the ranks in the House Republican conference steadily since becoming the youngest person to be elected to Congress in 2014.

Stefanik delved into political and political realms after graduating from Harvard in 2006, serving in former President George W. Bush’s administration. She went on to support the Republican presidential ticket in 2012, playing a leading role in preparing then-Republican presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

A year later, Stefanik ran for office in New York’s 21st Congressional District. Stefanik ended up winning, flipping the district and becoming the first Republican to win the seat in 21 years. His victory was part of a republican wave across the country.

“She had to turn this into solid Republican territory,” said Ed Cox, chairman of the New York Republican Party. “She had to, from the beginning, have the political courage to do this and she had that.”

The rural district of upstate New York includes Plattsburgh and Glens Falls, and extends to the borders of Vermont and Canada. The district has swung between the two parties during presidential cycles. Former President Clinton won the district twice, while Bush won it in 2000 and 2004. Former President Obama flipped the district in 2008 and won during his re-election in 2012, but Trump flipped it in 2016 and won it again in 2020.

Stefanik said it was during the 2014 midterm elections that she began to see what she says were the changing winds within the Republican Party.

“If we look at the cycle that I led in 2014, that was the beginning of the seismic shift that happened within the Republican Party under the leadership of President Trump,” she said. “We managed to win over pro-Second Amendment blue-collar voters where the current socialist and radical Democratic Party – particularly in New York State, based in New York City – left them behind.”

Stefanik has proven to be one of Trump’s most vocal defenders on Capitol Hill. She was among Trump’s other vice presidential candidates at the RNC’s spring meeting at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida earlier this month. The former president supposedly spoke very well of Stefanik and the prospect of her being his running mate at a private dinner at Mar-a-Lago late last year, saying — approvingly — that “she’s a killer.”

Stefanik says she is “honored” to have her name mentioned as part of discussions about Trump’s running mate, but her focus is on working to elect Republicans at the ballot box.

“I think there’s a lot of opportunity for as many Republicans to make sure that we’re working as a team to win the presidency by electing Trump, to flip the Senate and win seats in the House,” she said.

But it’s the same praise that Stefanik and Trump give each other that has resulted in criticism from those who argue that she has sold out for the former president. On Sunday, Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream cited a 2022 New York Times report that included years-old anecdotes about comments Stefanik allegedly made criticizing Trump. Stefanik hit back at Bream, calling the quotes “false smears” and saying it was a “disgrace” the anchor cited the report.

The president also faced criticism for saying she would not have allowed the results of the 2020 presidential election to be certified if she had been in former Vice President Mike Pence’s position. She voted against certifying the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania but voted to certify the election in Arizona.

“These journalists writing this should really take the time to talk to the voters in my district, who know that I have reflected my district from day one,” Stefanik told The Hill when asked about the criticism she faced for her support of the former president before Sunday’s Fox News interview.

Like most lawmakers, Stefanik points out that her district shapes her agenda in Congress. The district, which is home to Fort Drum, has a large military population, leading Stefanik to focus on national security issues.

“What happens in the district, in the North of the country, has an impact on the world on a larger scale than many people realize,” said a Republican aide familiar with Stefanik’s work.

In addition to sitting on the House Education and Workforce Committee, Stefanik also serves on the Armed Services Committee and Intelligence committees.

Stefanik focused on the areas of missile defense, emerging technology, and countering Chinese government influence as part of her committee work. She and her allies praised her efforts to spare Fort Drum from cuts in 2015, as well as for participating in an ongoing, years-long effort to establish a missile defense system at the military base.

She also praises his early work examining artificial intelligence, introducing legislation in 2018 that helped establish the National Safety Commission on Artificial Intelligence. Stefanik also delved into the work of quantum information science, which has been developed in her district at the Air Force Research Laboratories in Rome, NY.

Stefanik in May led a group of House Republicans in introducing legislation that increases tariffs on Chinese-made drone manufacturers, including DJI.

“I fight to ensure our district is seated at the highest level,” Stefanik said. “President Trump respects that fight and respects that strength.”

The New York congresswoman spoke proudly of a moment in 2018 when Trump visited Fort Drum to sign the Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act.

“This was really the first high-level experience that President Trump and I had on national security issues,” she said, referring to the signing in 2018. “He referenced this two weekends ago at Mar-a-Lago about how this was an important moment not only for his record, but specifically for my district.”

“No district tells the story of today’s Republican Party better than New York’s 21st Congressional District,” she said.