Elise Stefanik, a Republican representative from upstate New York, has announced that she’s bowing out of the race for the Republican nomination for governor of New York, as well as that she will not seek re-election to Congress; in her announcement, she cited wanting to spend more time with her young son and family.
When she was elected in 2014, at age 30, she was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. She was originally seen as a moderate, but she became a strong supporter of Trump, and her stances became more conservative; she is currently the Chair of the House Republican Conference.
Trump named her to be his ambassador to the U.N. when he started his second term, but her nomination was withdrawn over concerns about losing a Republican seat in the House. In recent weeks, she’s been critical of Mike Johnson, calling him a liar and a political novice.
Another prominent, once-promising GOP rep who’s decided to get out.
That’s like being the lookout on the Titanic. If no one will listen to you about the ice berg ahead the only rational thing to do is jump ship and save your own hide.
ETA: I confused “Conference” with “Committee”. Still, it’s nice to see any GOP leadership publicly spooked by next November. This is where the self-interested get separated from the true believers.
I certainly don’t have the names of all 100 Senators committed to memory but I do believe I would recognize their names. It likely doesn’t mean much but I don’t recall having ever heard of Sen. Lummis before.
She’s a first-term senator (elected in 2020), but was Wyoming’s only member of the U.S. House for four terms (Liz Cheney succeeded her in that seat in 2016). Reading through her Wikipedia article, it seems like she’s pretty much a standard GOP (and now MAGA) congressperson in her views, and doesn’t seem to have been the author or proponent of any significant legislation. Between that, and the fact she’s from a small-population state, it’s probably not too surprising that she has little in the way of a national image.