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<\/a><\/p>\nRep. Elise Stefanik speaks at the ADL’s Never Is Now summit at Javits Center on March 03, 2025 in New York City. (Bryan Bedder\/Getty Images for Anti-Defamation League)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
She aims to challenge the Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul, who angered many Jews in New York with her endorsement of New York City\u2019s mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, despite his track record of Israel criticism.<\/p>\n
In an announcement video for Stefanik\u2019s gubernatorial run, a narrator notes that she \u201cfought woke insanity in our schools,\u201d as a headline referring to her campus antisemitism hearings fills the screen. <\/p>\n
Stefanik, who is not Jewish, has been one of the loudest voices on Capitol Hill condemning antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and war in Gaza. Her relentless questioning of university presidents about the campus climate for Jews was credited with leading to the resignations of the top posts at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and others. <\/p>\n
Many invitations to address Jewish groups followed, including the Anti-Defamation League and Yeshiva University (which awarded her the Modern Orthodox school\u2019s highest honor over the objections of many faculty). Her newfound allyships came despite Stefanik\u2019s past platforming of the antisemitic \u201cGreat Replacement\u201d theory, and other troublesome aspects of her history that confounded liberal Jews.<\/p>\n
Stefanik, who seeks to become the first Republican since George Pataki to move into the governor\u2019s mansion in Albany, seems likely to make antisemitism a main flank of her campaign. Her video attacks Hochul for the governor\u2019s Mamdani endorsement, saying Hochul \u201ccozied up to a defund-the-police, tax hiking, antisemitic Communist.\u201d Hochul is facing a primary challenge from her top lieutenant, who had endorsed Mamdani much earlier in the election cycle and who is married to a Jewish filmmaker.<\/p>\n
Among the Republican endorsements of Stefanik\u2019s campaign the candidate retweeted Friday morning were Leo Terrell, who heads an antisemitism task force within the Trump administration, and New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, who is Jewish and vocally pro-Israel. <\/p>\n
\u201cElise Stefanik will clean up our college campuses from the rot they have become and will confront antisemitism head on!\u201d Vernikov wrote.<\/p>\n
A staunch ally of President Donald Trump, Stefanik had been in line to become his ambassador to the United Nations, where she had promised to be a vocal defender of Israel. Her nomination was withdrawn in order to keep her in the House to help protect the chamber\u2019s slim GOP majority, but Stefanik has been eyeing a bigger platform ever since.<\/p>\n
Her announcement comes as the GOP is facing an internal civil war over right-wing antisemitism, with pundit Tucker Carlson, the head of the Heritage Foundation, and Vice President J.D. Vance among the figures taking criticism for embracing or failing to condemn antisemitic viewpoints. Stefanik was absent from this year\u2019s Republican Jewish Coalition summit, where various speakers denounced antisemitism on the right.<\/p>\n