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Should former President Donald Trump pick Rep. Elise Stefanik as his running mate?
- Yes
- No
Among the names that Trump is strongly considering for his vice president is New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, NBC News reports.
The 39-year-old House Republican Conference chair – whose 21st District represents several Capital Region counties, including Rensselaer – was brought up during a dinner at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home in December 2023, according to the outlet.
Trump nodded approvingly and referred to Stefanik as “a killer,” after which he and his allies began looking more closely at her as a potential running mate, according to NBC News.
“Stefanik is at the top,” Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, told the outlet.
The congresswoman further fueled speculation by announcing that she will join Trump on the campaign trail at a rally in New Hampshire on Friday, Jan. 19, ahead of the state’s Republican primary.
“I’m so proud to join my friend President Donald Trump on the campaign trail in New Hampshire on behalf of #NY21 and America!” she said on X, formerly Twitter. “America will elect President Trump the next President to Save America.”
An Albany native, Stefanik graduated from Harvard College in 2006. She served in the George W. Bush administration as a staff member for the US Domestic Policy Council and later worked for former White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten.
In 2014, at the age of 30, she became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress at the time after defeating Democrat Aaron Woolf. She has since been re-elected four times.
Stefanik served on Trump’s impeachment defense team in 2019. She was also among the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
Her profile further grew in December 2023, when video of her grilling Ivy League college presidents about antisemitism on campus during a Congressional hearing made national headlines.
The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard later resigned after their responses to Stefanik's repeated questioning garnered widespread, bipartisan condemnation.
Stefanik welcomed her first child in 2021 with husband Matthew Manda. The couple lives in Saratoga County in the village of Schuylerville.
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