Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images
President Donald Trump waded into the murky waters of New York Republican politics on Wednesday, when, seemingly out of the blue, he posted two “Truths” to the social-media site he owns. In the first, he gave his “Complete and Total Endorsement” to the reelection of Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a MAGA die-hard who has thrilled the Republican faithful with his culture-war battles on immigration and transgender-athlete bans. In the second, he gave a Complete and Total Endorsement to Mike Lawler, the Hudson Valley congressman who is one of only three Republican members of Congress representing districts that Kamala Harris won last year.
Not endorsed was Elise Stefanik, the North Country Republican congresswoman who reluctantly returned to the House after Trump pulled her nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations in order to preserve the Republicans’ slender majority in the chamber.
All three have been making moves to run for governor, and so to most Republicans in New York, this was seen as a clear effort to sideline at least Lawler and clear a path for Stefanik to win the nomination. But Republican operatives in the state say that it is not so simple and that Trump’s posts — which he made himself, without telling aides — were more about Republicans holding on to the House.
They currently hold a seven-seat majority, but with only three Republicans in Harris-won seats and eight Democrats in seats won by Trump, many GOP operatives believe that the party can actually hold on to the chamber in the midterms. Doing so would go hard against historical trends. In the 22 midterm elections between 1934 and 2018, the president’s party has lost 28 House seats on average. In Trump’s first midterm in 2018, the Republicans lost 40 seats. In Joe Biden’s midterm in 2022, in what was considered a remarkably good showing for the party in power, the Democrats still lost nine seats.
2026 could be even more daunting. As the coalitions have shifted in the Trump era, and Democrats have become a party of college-educated and suburban voters, who are turning out more regularly in elections than Republicans, which helps explain the 2022 results. Plus, unless Trump’s low polling rebounds, Republicans could face an environment where they are saddled with defending the actions of a president who has an approval rating in the mid-40s.
“There is a sense that we have to do everything we can to hold the House,” says one Republican operative. “Everyone is aware that it is not going to be easy but if Democrats take the House back then Trump’s presidency is effectively over.”
And so what Trump was really doing was boosting House Speaker Mike Johnson. Republicans on Capitol Hill have been engaged in a months-long effort to convince Lawler to run for re-election, believing that he is the only candidate who could hold on to a seat in a district where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans and that may be central to the GOP’s efforts to hold on to the House.
Unlike most swing-seat Republicans, Lawler has been holding town-hall meetings in the district, which have been flooded by Democrats whose protests have gone viral — which was the point, Republican strategists say. Lawler was trying to show his own base voters that, in the words of one operative close to him, “how these crazy liberals are out to get me. It gets the people on your side to pay attention and come to your defense.”
A savvy political operator, Lawler, 38, has carved out a space for himself as one of the most moderate members of the GOP caucus, and so someone many New York Republicans believe was their best hope to end a statewide drought that dates back to 2002. Lawler has teased a gubernatorial run for years, but even people close to him thought he was unlikely to actually do it next year. In 2022, a year in which it looked as if Biden were going to drag Democrats down, Lee Zeldin put together one of the best statewide performances by a Republican in decades, but still lost to Governor Kathy Hochul by six points. Hochul’s popularity has rebounded slightly — she was 44-43 in a recent Siena poll — and the math for any Republican running statewide is still difficult.
Which leaves Blakeman and Stefanik. Both are favorites of the Trump wing of the party, but little-known outside of their respective bases. If Stefanik won, she would have to give up a seat that has largely been seen as safe, but not so safe that Republicans were willing to risk a special election if she had vacated to serve as ambassador to the UN. Stefanik has already won over most of the GOP county chairs upstate, and is said to be taking a serious look at running for governor, but doing so could end her political career if the Republican drought holds. Blakeman, meanwhile, has run unsuccessfully statewide twice, and would not have to give up his seat as Nassau County executive if he were to try a third time.
“I think we would have a shot,” says another New York Republican. “The Democratic brand is shambles, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer’s approval is in the toilet, everyone thinks Hochul is a disaster. It could be a tough year but it’s moving in the right direction in New York for us. New York may be the only place that goes against the trend.”
