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Outgoing Rep. Elise Stefanik ripped state Republicans for their dismal results in Tuesday’s midterm elections — calling the disaster a “political reckoning” and failed gubernatorial challenger Bruce Blakeman a “low energy” candidate.
“The results speak for themselves,” Stefanik told The Post Wednesday, a day after Democrats retook the Senate, Congress and flipped five state governorships blue.
“The state party apparatus is broken. It needs to be built from scratch,” she said of New York’s Republican Party, where Stefanik was seen as a rising leader and likely gubernatorial candidate until President Trump snubbed her hopes in favor of a Blakeman endorsement.
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But she brushed off Blakeman’s campaign as a tepid fiasco — saying you just had to look at his crushing loss to Gov. Kathy Hochul to see what happened “when you have a low energy campaign with limited resources that lacked an apparatus.”
Blakeman — who is now Nassau County executive — was decimated by Hochul in a 60.1% to 39.7% loss, which was a far cry from the roughly 6-point margin 2022 Republican candidate Lee Zeldin lost by and that Republicans were hoping to push to a win on Tuesday.
Many had viewed Stefanik — District 21’s rep since 2015 — as the Republican who could finally do that and take the state, until Trump passed her over for Blakeman.
And the 41-year-old mother has now resolved to quit politics and head for the private sector.
“I’m excited for the next chapter in my life and for my family,” she said, mentioning media and a professorship as possibilities.
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But she’s was also determined to help get Republicans back on their feet with her months left in office until she’s replaced by Republican Anthony Constantino on Jan. 3.
“There’s an opportunity to reassess and rebuild. There needs to be significant change in structure and leadership,” she said of the New York Republican party. “There needs to be generational change.”
And Stefanik said she had little time for Blakeman during that process — telling how she didn’t speak to him once during his ill-fated campaign.
“He called me and left a message that he wanted to help sell my book. It was a #1 selling book,” Stefanik said. “As a candidate you have to earn your support.”
But Rep. Mike Lawler — who was unseated in the 17th District by Democrat Cait Conley — could have a future leading the local party, she said, insisting he was “going to be part of this rebuild.”
“Lawler did a tremendous job and is a rising star,” she said of the 40-year-old, who she had been regularly talking to as the campaign trail ended. “Mike Lawler is a star in the party and will continue to be a star in the future.”
— Additional reporting by Katherine Donlevy
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