WASHINGTON -- House Republicans on Friday elected Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, a vocal defender of former President Donald Trump, as their No. 3 leader, moving swiftly to replace Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who was deposed this week for her refusal to stay silent about the former president's election lies.
The secret-ballot vote, which unfolded in a basement auditorium at the Capitol, was the culmination of a remarkable campaign by Republicans to purge a vocal critic of Trump from their ranks, solidifying his grasp on the party and cementing a litmus test for its leaders of unswerving loyalty to the former president.
Stefanik, 36, who campaigned as a pragmatic moderate when she was elected to Congress in 2014 and has sometimes crossed party lines to vote with Democrats, in recent years has become a strident ally of Trump. Republican leaders, citing her messaging discipline and fundraising prowess, had effectively anointed her as Cheney's successor even before Cheney, a staunch conservative, was voted out of leadership on Wednesday.
Stefanik easily defeated Rep. Chip Roy of Texas 134-46 in the secret ballot that gave GOP lawmakers a distinct choice about where to steer the party. Stefanik has a moderate voting record but strong backing from Trump and other party leaders, including some conservatives, while Roy is in the hard-right House Freedom Caucus and was actively opposed by the former president.
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While the GOP defines itself as conservative, Stefanik's win provided one measure of the diminished role ideology now plays for Republicans.
Republicans hope Stefanik will help shift attention from their acrimonious purge of the defiant Cheney toward their drive to win House control in the 2022 elections.
"My focus is on unity, because that's what the American people, and that's what our voters, deserve," she said Friday.
Stefanik also thanked Trump, who had endorsed her candidacy several times from his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.
Trump issued a statement Friday congratulating Stefanik, saying, "The House GOP is united and the Make America Great Again movement is Strong!"
Asked if she believed Trump was the leader of the Republican Party, Stefanik said: "I believe that voters determine the leader of the Republican Party, and President Trump is the leader that they look to. I support President Trump, voters support President Trump; he is an important voice in our Republican Party."
Cheney, who was embarking on something of a media tour in the wake of her ouster to press her concerns about Trump and her party's continuing embrace of him, has criticized Republicans who perpetuate the falsehood that the election was illegitimate, noting that courts considered and rejected scores of challenges.
Officials and judges from both parties around the country have declared there is no evidence Trump was cheated out of a win.
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Stefanik has told colleagues that she'll serve in leadership only through next year, then try taking the top GOP spot on the influential House Education and Labor Committee. Her plans were described last week by a Republican lawmaker and an aide who discussed them only on condition of anonymity.
Besides support from Trump, Stefanik was backed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and two of the chamber's most influential conservatives: No. 2 leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio.
In the past four presidential elections, Stefanik's rural district backed Barack Obama twice but then Trump twice.
She was a Trump critic during his 2016 campaign, calling his videotaped comments on sexually assaulting women "just wrong" and at times avoiding stating his name.
She sprang to Trump's attention by defending him in 2019 during his first impeachment over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to produce political dirt on Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential contender at the time.
She's remained a Trump booster. Hours after the Capitol attack, she voted against formally approving Pennsylvania's state-certified electoral votes for Biden.
Information for this article was contributed by Alan Fram and Mary Clare Jalonick of The Associated Press; and by Catie Edmondson of The New York Times.
