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Could this top Trump ally break Republican’s 2-decade losing streak in this key state?
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EXCLUSIVE: STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, headlining a local GOP fundraising dinner in this MAGA stronghold in Democrat-dominated New York City, sent a hint of her potential political intentions.
«Are we ready to fire Kathy Hochul next year?» said the six-term congresswoman from a largely rural, red-leaning district in Upstate New York, drawing loud cheers at the Staten Island GOP’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner.
Hochul, blue-state New York’s Democrat governor, is running for re-election next year for a second four-year term.
And Stefanik, who is a member of the House GOP’s leadership, is the most high-profile Republican to seriously consider taking on Hochul in the 2026 elections.
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Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York headlines a Staten Island GOP fundraising dinner in New York City on June 2, 2025. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
Pointing to next year’s battle, Stefanik said the eventual GOP nominee taking on Hochul «needs to be the toughest fighter, who has taken on the media, who has taken on the radical left, who has taken on the naysayers, and who is a proven winner.»
It sounded like Stefanik, who early in her congressional tenure was seen as an establishment Republican but who has become a top ally of President Donald Trump and a MAGA champion, was talking about herself.
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Stefanik, in a national exclusive interview with Fox News Digital ahead of her appearance at the Staten Island GOP event, said she’s «proud to be» one of Trump’s top supporters in the House.
«I stepped up to deliver President Trump’s agenda that is unleashing American energy [independence], securing the border, cutting taxes for New Yorkers, specifically the state and local tax deduction,» she touted.
«I am very close to President Trump. I chaired his campaign in New York. I was the first Republican member to endorse him.»
Stefanik highlighted that she and the president «talk about a lot of different things. He’s paying close attention to New York. He knows that New York state needs new leadership, strong Republican leadership.»
Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, a top ally of President Donald Trump, is seen joining the then-former president on the 2024 campaign trail in New Hampshire. (Getty Images)
And Stefanik said she «would be honored to have his support» if she pulls the trigger and launches a 2026 Republican gubernatorial campaign in the Empire State.
It’s been 23 years since a Republican won a gubernatorial election in heavily blue New York. You have to go all the way back to former Gov. George Pataki’s second re-election victory in 2002.
But Hochul will likely face a very competitive re-election.
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Hochul was the state’s lieutenant governor when, in August 2021, she was sworn in as New York’s first female governor after three-term Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace amid multiple scandals.
She defeated then-Rep. Lee Zeldin by just over six points in 2022 to win a full four-year term. But Zeldin’s showing was the best by a Republican gubernatorial nominee since Pataki won re-election to a third term in 2002.
Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York is seeking re-election next year. (REUTERS/David Dee Delgado)
Meanwhile, Trump, who lost New York by 23 points in the 2020 presidential election, trimmed his deficit by 10 points last November.
While Hochul’s approval ratings in a recent Siena College poll were holding slightly in positive territory, the survey indicated a majority of New Yorkers would still prefer someone else to win the 2026 election for governor of the Empire State.
According to the poll, which was conducted May 12-15, 36% of registered voters in New York state said they would vote to re-elect Hochul to a second four-year term, with a majority (55%) saying they wanted someone else.
Stefanik, in her Fox News Digital interview, reiterated her argument that Hochul is «the worst governor in America.»
GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York speaks with an attendee at a Staten Island GOP fundraising dinner on June 2, 2025, in New York City. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
And she highlighted that «we need a candidate who will speak and reach out to New Yorkers of all political stripes. I’ve done that in my congressional district. When I first ran for Congress, I was the underdog. No one in my family is political. I grew up in a small-business family. I flipped a district from Democrat to Republican, and we’ve won it by double digits ever since.»
If she decides to launch a gubernatorial campaign, Stefanik may not have the GOP primary to herself.
Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, who’s in his second term representing a key swing congressional district that covers a large swath of New York City’s northern suburbs, is mulling a 2026 GOP run for governor.
«I think Kathy Hochul is the most feckless, incompetent governor in America,» Lawler said in a Fox News Digital interview in April.
Lawler has said that he’ll make a decision on whether to run for governor or for re-election this month.
But Trump last month endorsed Lawler for re-election, a likely sign that the president would rather have the congressman seek re-election as the House GOP fights to protect its razor-thin majority in the chamber rather than seek the governor’s office.
Another Trump supporter, Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman, has also mulled a run for governor.
Asked about a potential GOP primary for governor, Stefanik said, «I think Republicans will work it out. We know how important it is to unify again.»
«I work very well with all of my colleagues, including those who are considering, but I think we’ll work it out on the Republican side,» she added.
But the Democratic Governor’s Association (DGA), in a memo, argued, «The Republican nomination in New York will be decided by one person: Donald Trump.»
And the DGA argued that the GOP race «has already grown fractious and messy.»
Stefanik was interviewed about an hour after news broke that Hochul would face a primary challenge from her own lieutenant governor.
New York Lt. Gov. Anthonio Delgado on Monday announced his bid to try and oust his boss as the Democrats’ nominee in next year’s election in a rare move by a lieutenant governor to primary challenge a sitting incumbent.
New York Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado on Monday announced that he would launch a 2026 Democrat primary challenge against Gov. Kathy Hochul. (Paul Morigi/Getty Images)
Delgado, in a video announcing his candidacy, took a jab at his boss, saying, «What we need right here in New York is bold, decisive, transformational leadership.»
Recent polls indicate that Hochul enjoys a wide lead over Delgado and Rep. Richie Torres, who’s also mulling a primary challenge, in the Democrat gubernatorial nomination race.
The DGA praised Hochul in a statement after Delgado’s announcement.
«Governor Kathy Hochul is a proven leader with a strong record of delivering for New Yorkers: The Democratic Governors Association is 100 percent behind Governor Hochul as she continues to deliver for New York, take on Donald Trump, and build the operation it will take to beat Republicans up and down the ballot in 2026,» DGA executive director Meghan Meehan-Draper wrote.
But Stefanik said the news of the primary challenge backed up her arguments.
«I dubbed Kathy Hochul the worst governor in America because it’s true. It’s not just Republicans. It’s independent and Democrat voters as well across this state who understand that she has failed, she has delivered catastrophic failed policies in New York,» Stefanik said.
And Stefanik added that «this is her hand-picked lieutenant governor that she chose that is now primarying Kathy Hochul, and it is because she failed at her job.»
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Asked if the news would push her closer to running for governor, Stefanik said, «I am taking a close look. It’s why I’m crisscrossing the state. I am on Staten Island today … I’ll be in Erie County, Suffolk County, Albany County, New York City. I’ve been all over the place and that will continue.»
«I will be making my decision over the coming months,» she added.
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Sanders-endorsed Senate candidate knocked for alleged flip-flop to ‘have it both ways’ on key issue
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A Democratic Senate candidate endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is being slammed for allegedly flip-flopping on one of his primary campaign issues.
Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive candidate who previously ran an unsuccessful bid for Michigan governor, has made Medicare for All a hallmark of his Senate campaign.
However, as the Michigan Senate primary race heats up, El-Sayed’s Democratic opponent, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, is accusing him of backing down from a full Medicare for all stance and of «rewriting definitions to have it both ways.»
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Left: Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. Right: Michigan Democratic candidate and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. (Photos by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images; MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Roxie Richner, an El-Sayed campaign spokesperson, responded by telling Fox News Digital that «Dr. El-Sayed is and has always been for Medicare for All—guaranteed public health insurance for every American. Cradle to grave. No premiums, deductibles, or co-pays.»
«Dr. El-Sayed would be the first Democratic doctor elected to the U.S. Senate since 1969, and he looks forward to passing Medicare for All into law,» added Richner.
El-Sayed’s campaign website page on «A Healthier America» cites a book he co-authored in 2021 in which he wrote that limiting private alternatives to Medicare for All would be important to ensuring providers accepted the insurance. The book advocates for Medicare for All as a type of «monopsony» in healthcare, in which there is only a single buyer of medical services, the government.
«By insuring all Americans, M4A becomes a monopsony in healthcare. This is different from a monopoly, where there’s only one seller of a good; in a monopsony there’s only one buyer of a good. That gives the single buyer considerable negotiating leverage, which Medicare could use to rein in the cost of drugs, hospital stays, and physician services,» the book reads.
In a November post on X, El-Sayed explained that this monopsony «would instantaneously create a disciplining feature against rising prices,» because it «takes out the profit motive on the payer end of the transaction.»
The book further states that «because alternatives to M4A [Medicare for All] would be limited, participation of providers would be virtually guaranteed.»
«Instead of spending time and money dealing with the arcane requirements of hundreds of different health plans […] providers could use one streamlined system that would free up resources to focus on clinical care,» the books reads.
The latest version of the federal Medicare for All Act, introduced in the Senate by Sanders, includes language that would effectively ban most comprehensive private insurance plans and relegate private insurers to providing limited supplemental care.
The legislation would make it unlawful for «a private health insurer to sell health insurance coverage that duplicates the benefits provided under this Act; or (2) an employer to provide benefits for an employee, former employee, or the dependents of an employee or former employee that duplicate the benefits provided under this Act.»
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Dr. Abdul El-Sayed speaks during a coronavirus public health roundtable with Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. (Erin Kirkland/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
El-Sayed testified before the Senate in support of the Medicare for All Act in 2022, calling it «the clearest pathway to universal, durable health care insurance, bar none» and saying that «cradle to grave coverage would do away with the premiums, co pays, deductibles that leave even privately insured Americans rationing their health care today.»
The year before, in an interview with NerdWallet, El-Sayed said that under a Medicare for All plan, the government would be «buying you out» of your private insurance plan but that «a few insurance companies that offered a sort of concierge-level service for folks who wanted to pay for that.»
In a 2024 episode of the «America Dissected» podcast, El-Sayed emphasized that «we don’t really need private health insurance in this country.»
He said that «private health insurance is a system by which you have a middleman in our healthcare system making a tremendous amount of money that is leading to a number of the biggest problems in American healthcare whether that’s the fact that our costs continue to spiral upward, whether that’s the fact that nearly ten million people in our country don’t get health insurance at all, or it’s the fact that we are consistently in this country, unable to guarantee, even people who are insurance access to the health care they need.»
In October, El-Sayed knocked McMorrow for advocating for allowing a public option under universal healthcare, writing on X, «a public option can’t deliver healthcare to every Michigander. Medicare for All can.» Politico, in December, reported El-Sayed slamming McMorrow’s call for universal health care with a public option as «incoherent.»
«Now a public option is exactly that; it’s just an option. There is no reason why it would actually address any of the foundational problems in our system. It wouldn’t bring down the rising costs. It wouldn’t guarantee people health care, and we don’t really know how much it would cost,» he said.
Yet, while speaking on the Brian Tyler Cohen Podcast in January, El-Sayed suggested that under Medicare for All, «if you like your insurance from your employer or from your union, that can still be there for you.»
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Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced the Medicare for All Act. (Getty Images)
Days later, speaking on radio channel WDET, he again said, «Medicare for All is government health insurance guaranteed for everyone, regardless of what circumstances you’re in. If you like your insurance through your employer or through your union, I hope that’ll be there for you. But if you lose your job, if your factory shuts down, you shouldn’t be destitute without the health care that you need and deserve.» He also said, «If you have a public option, what happens is, the private health insurance system will try to dump all of the most expensive patients onto that public option, vastly increasing the cost of that public option and making it unsustainable.»
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El-Sayed’s campaign website states that he «believes in expanding Medicare to cover every single American from cradle to grave while sustaining the option for workers to keep supplemental private insurance their unions or employers may provide.» Amid criticism from McMorrow, El-Sayed doubled down on his Medicare for All messaging in a January fundraising message, in which he wrote that «private insurance could supplement or duplicate Medicare.»
Meanwhile, McMorrow has accused him of not being honest on Medicare for All.
«On an issue as important as healthcare, you have to be honest about what you’re fighting for,» McMorrow wrote in a public reply to El-Sayed, adding, «The Medicare for All legislation that you’ve championed completely eliminates private health insurance as it exists today.»
Sanders’ office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
midterm elections,senate elections,democratic party,michigan
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Peligro en Los Alpes italianos: dos muertos y múltiples avalanchas en menos de una semana
Una serie de avalanchas sacudió el norte de Italia este fin de semana, con un saldo de dos esquiadores muertos y al menos dos heridos en incidentes separados que se produjeron en condiciones de nieve excepcionalmente inestables a lo largo del arco alpino.
El episodio más grave ocurrió el domingo en el Couloir Vesses, una conocida ruta de esquí fuera de pista en la parte alta del Val Veny, en Courmayeur, localidad ubicada en el lado italiano del Mont Blanc, cerca de la frontera entre Francia y Suiza. La avalancha sepultó a varios integrantes de un grupo de esquiadores. Los rescatistas localizaron en un primer momento el cuerpo de una víctima y trasladaron de urgencia a dos heridos en estado crítico. Uno de ellos falleció poco después de llegar al hospital, mientras que el único superviviente fue derivado en condiciones muy graves al hospital Molinette de Turín.
Las labores de búsqueda y rescate, concluidas el mismo domingo, movilizaron a 15 rescatistas, tres unidades caninas, dos médicos, dos helicópteros y dos ambulancias. Medios locales estiman que el grupo original estaba integrado por entre tres y seis personas de nacionalidad francesa, aunque las autoridades no precisaron el número total de afectados.
El mismo domingo, en Trentino, también en el norte del país, una persona quedó parcialmente sepultada por otra avalancha en la zona de Tesino, pero fue rescatada por sus propios compañeros sin necesidad de asistencia médica.
Dos días después, el martes 17 de febrero, un testigo filmó en la misma zona de Val Veny, cerca del telesilla Zerotta en Courmayeur, cómo una enorme nube de nieve generada por una avalancha se extendió sobre una fila de esquiadores y snowboarders que esperaban para subir al remonte. Las imágenes muestran cómo la nube cubrió completamente el área, redujo la visibilidad a cero e impactó a quienes aguardaban en la fila. En ese caso no se registraron heridos.
Los expertos advierten que incluso las nubes de polvo generadas por avalanchas pueden derribar personas, crear condiciones de respiración peligrosas y causar pánico, aun cuando no arrastren escombros de nieve. En el momento del incidente del martes, el nivel de peligro de avalanchas en la zona estaba calificado en 4 sobre 5, considerado “alto” por los servicios de alerta alpinos.
Los fallecidos del domingo en Courmayeur se suman a un contexto de peligro extendido en toda la región. Según informó el Servicio de Rescate Alpino de Italia, un récord de 13 esquiadores de fondo, alpinistas y excursionistas murieron en las montañas italianas en los siete días previos al 8 de febrero, diez de ellos en avalanchas provocadas por un manto de nieve particularmente inestable.
Las nevadas recientes, combinadas con fuertes rachas de viento en cotas altas y la acumulación de nieve sobre capas débiles del manto nivoso, han creado condiciones especialmente peligrosas a lo largo de todo el arco alpino entre Italia, Francia, Suiza y Austria. Los servicios de alerta de los cuatro países han instado de forma reiterada a los esquiadores a consultar los boletines de avalanchas diariamente, respetar los cierres de pistas y evitar las zonas de terreno expuesto durante este período de alto riesgo. Los expertos advierten que, con los ciclos de tormentas que continúan afectando partes de los Alpes, el peligro elevado podría persistir en muchas regiones en el corto plazo.
Courmayeur, localidad de unos 2.900 habitantes, se encuentra a aproximadamente 200 kilómetros al noroeste de Milán, una de las sedes de los Juegos Olímpicos de Invierno de Milán-Cortina.
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