The White House pulled Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday—in a sign that Republicans fear their wafer-thin House majority could be lost before the midterms.
The decision was driven by fears that Stefanik’s departure from the House of Representatives would further shrink Republicans’ slim majority and threaten President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda, he indicated in a Truth Social post.
There were no signs Stefanik would struggle to be confirmed by the Senate, and she does not appear to have fallen out of favor with Trump, who said Thursday she remains “one of my greatest allies.”
Republicans hold 218 seats in the House to Democrats’ 213—one of the slimmest margins in modern U.S. history. There are also four vacant seats, meaning the unexpected death of a congressman—and poor performances in a handful of special elections on the horizon—may put that tiny majority in jeopardy.
Sources told CBS News that Stefanik’s nomination was put on ice—and eventually canceled outright—because there was an increasing chance a Democrat might pull off a special election win to fill her seat. Some also suggested that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, may drag out a special election for months to keep the seat vacant for Republicans.
Stefanik comfortably won re-election in November by 24 points and never resigned her seat in Congress, where she represents New York’s largely rural northeast corner.
The lawmaker would have had to give up the seat to take her ambassador gig, however, and there have been some warning signs that MAGA 2.0’s honeymoon is waning. This, Axios reports, caused the White House to get “cold feet.”
Trump has prioritized passing “one big, beautiful” spending bill through the House before the April recess and is pressing House Speaker Mike Johnson to make it happen.
Neither Trump nor GOP leaders want to take any chances with their narrow House majority.
“The House is determined to send the president one big, beautiful bill that secures our border, keeps taxes low for families and job creators, grows our economy, restores American energy dominance, brings back peace through strength, and makes government more efficient and more accountable to the American people,” Johnson said on Monday.
Among those signs was a hotly contested state Senate race in Pennsylvania to determine which party would hold a one-member majority in the chamber. A small town mayor in Lancaster County won the race as a Democrat in a district that Trump won by 15 points in November, giving Democrats control of the chamber.
In Florida, which has become the home base for the MAGA movement, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Republicans have “grown concerned” about a special election next week to replace the seat vacated by Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Waltz.
The Republican running to replace Waltz, a firebrand state senator named Randy Fine from a historically red district, has raised less than $1 million but had less than $93,000 cash on hand as of this week. His Democratic challenges, a high school teacher, meanwhile, has taken in nearly $10 million and had $1.3 million cash on hand, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Republicans reportedly fear that a shock loss—or even a close one—in Florida would appear as an indictment of how Trump is governing and might spark a domino effect. Private GOP polling recently showed Fine down three points, Axios reported, citing someone who saw data gathered by Trump’s old pollster.
The right-leaning Journal wrote of a possible close race this week: “Democrats would hail it as a repudiation of Trump policies and fundraise off it, while centrist Republicans could feel pressure to distance themselves from the administration headed into the midterms.”
A second special election in the state’s deep-red panhandle—to fill the seat vacated by former Rep. Matt Gaetz—is expected to comfortably remain in Republican control next week.
A third special election will be held this summer in Arizona to replace Democrat Raúl Grijalva, who died from cancer on March 13. That congressional district, made up largely by the state’s border cities and part of Tucson, is a Democratic stronghold.
Republicans had not landed on a candidate to replace Stefanik in the now-unnecessary special election in New York. More than eight Republicans declared their candidacy to up against the Democratic newcomer Blake Gendebien, a dairy farmer.
