Rep. Stefanik’s U.N. appointment to trigger special election in New York
President-elect Donald Trump announced on Monday that he’s selected Rep. Elise Stefanik as the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations — meaning that voters in her upstate New York district will elect Stefanik’s replacement in Congress within months of reelecting her.
On Tuesday, Stefanik was reelected to her sixth term in Congress by a 24-point margin in a safely Republican district that Trump would have won by almost 16 percentage points in 2020. Over the years, she’s been a staunch defender of the incoming president and currently serves as the highest ranking Republican woman in the U.S. House. At one point, there was speculation that Trump was considering her for the vice presidency.
Her nomination as ambassador will require confirmation in the U.S. Senate, which Stefanik should easily pick up, as Republicans will take control of the upper chamber following Tuesday’s election. Should she be confirmed, New York state law requires that Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, must call a special election within ten days of a vacancy, and schedule the election between 70 and 80 days after declaring the vacancy.
Stefanik was first elected to the House in 2014, which at the time, made her the youngest woman elected to Congress. Over the years, though, she’s risen from a moderate New York Republican to a MAGA superstar. Stefanik was one of Trump’s strongest defenders during the 2019 impeachment proceedings and was one of many Republicans who questioned the results of the 2020 election, sharing baseless claims that the race was somehow stolen from Trump.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who also ran for the presidency, served as one of Trump’s U.N. ambassadors during his first administration. Shortly after his reelection, however, Trump confirmed that Haley would not be joining this administration this go-around.