Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.
David Freedlander at New York:
President Donald Trump waded into the murky waters of New York Republican politics on Wednesday, when, seemingly out of the blue, he posted two “Truths” to the social-media site he owns. In the first, he gave his “Complete and Total Endorsement” to the reelection of Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a MAGA die-hard who has thrilled the Republican faithful with his culture-war battles on immigration and transgender-athlete bans. In the second, he gave a Complete and Total Endorsement to Mike Lawler, the Hudson Valley congressman who is one of only three Republican members of Congress representing districts that Kamala Harris won last year.
Not endorsed was Elise Stefanik, the North Country Republican congresswoman who reluctantly returned to the House after Trump pulled her nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations in order to preserve the Republicans’ slender majority in the chamber.
All three have been making moves to run for governor, and so to most Republicans in New York, this was seen as a clear effort to sideline at least Lawler and clear a path for Stefanik to win the nomination. But Republican operatives in the state say that it is not so simple and that Trump’s posts — which he made himself, without telling aides — were more about Republicans holding on to the House.
