{"id":7749,"date":"2025-03-28T08:51:37","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T08:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/stefaniks-withdrawal-suggests-republicans-are-sweating-their-thin-margins\/"},"modified":"2025-03-28T08:51:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T08:51:37","slug":"stefaniks-withdrawal-suggests-republicans-are-sweating-their-thin-margins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/stefaniks-withdrawal-suggests-republicans-are-sweating-their-thin-margins\/","title":{"rendered":"Stefanik’s withdrawal suggests Republicans are sweating their thin margins"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

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.<\/p>\n

A pair of April elections in deep-red swaths of Florida next week was supposed to improve the GOP\u2019s cushion in the House and clear the path for Stefanik\u2019s departure, until Trump said he didn’t “want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise\u2019s seat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision to pull Stefanik\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Some Republican strategists said it\u2019s not worth taking the risk of losing Stefanik\u2019s sprawling northern New York seat, which Trump won by 20 points in 2024.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

Harper is not the only Republican making that calculation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re far underperforming in seats Trump won by 30 then there\u2019s obvious concern about having to chance special elections in seats Trump won by a lot less,\u201d said one top GOP operative granted anonymity to speak candidly. \u201cThe juice is not worth the squeeze sweating them out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans insist they would prevail in any race for Stefanik\u2019s seat. National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Maureen O\u2019Toole said the party would \u201cwin this seat in a special election and we\u2019ll win it in a general election.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an appearance on Fox News on Thursday evening, Stefanik said the withdrawal of her nomination was \u201cabout stepping up as a team, and I am doing that as a leader.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward to continue serving in different ways,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

In Florida, Weil, the Democratic candidate, has raised $10 million, which has led to Elon Musk\u2019s America PAC putting forward some last-minute cash<\/a> for Fine, as well as Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis.<\/p>\n

But that hasn\u2019t stopped Democrats from saying Republicans are panicking, not just playing it safe.<\/p>\n

Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster who was working for Blake Gendebien in the now-canceled special election in Stefanik\u2019s seat, said \u201cthis is a Jamaal Bowman-style five alarm fire bell.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, you don\u2019t have to take anyone\u2019s word for it, just see how Republicans are acting,\u201d McCrary said. \u201cThey were very blas\u00e9 about opening up the seat and now on a full retreat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats have been on a streak of success down ballot, narrowly winning a special election on Tuesday<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

But any chance for Democrats to flip Stefanik\u2019s seat would be an uphill battle. A poll in the district conducted last week, obtained by POLITICO<\/a>, showed a Republican candidate up 16 points. Stefanik carried the district by 24 points in 2024 \u2014 a higher margin than Trump\u2019s 20 point victory \u2014 and Republicans have 80,000 more registered voters than Democrats.<\/p>\n

One veteran Republican consultant, granted anonymity to speak candidly, pointed to Republicans\u2019 changing coalition of voters \u2014 many of whom Trump attracted<\/a> \u2014 as a reason for recent struggles in special elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans have traditionally done well in off-year elections and special elections because our voter coalition is more traditionally engaged voters,\u201d the consultant said. \u201cAnd 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brakkton Booker and Seb Starcevic<\/i> contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}