One of the shining spots in the midterm elections, despite his own loss in New York, was Lee Zeldin for helping Republicans win big in such a liberal state. In fact he tweeted this earlier this afternoon:
New Yorkers stepped up big time to FIRE Nancy Pelosi last Tuesday. Look at all of that beautiful red terrain heading down to Congress to be part of the 2023-2024 House Republican majority! 🇺🇸💪 pic.twitter.com/k9t97OCnWf
— Lee Zeldin (@leezeldin) November 14, 2022
New York Republicans flipped four seats from blue to red in the House and I think we can conclusively say that winning the majority would have been impossible without those flips. Lee Zeldin running such a great race for governor in the state helped bring that to fruition.
Since the election is over for him, it’s now being reported that Zeldin may be pursuing a run for RNC Chair:
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) is reportedly considering a bid for chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) following his candidacy in the Empire State’s gubernatorial race, according to reports.
Activists and supporters across the country have asked Zeldin to run for the position following his unsuccessful bid to unseat incumbent New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in blue New York. And according to Zeldin’s media consultant, John Brabender, the Republican is exploring the option.
“It’s likely that he will at least explore it. … He’s fielding calls, talking to people, listening to them, but it has not gone beyond that,” Brabender said, NBC News reported.
It remains unclear if current RNC chair, Ronna McDaniel, or her cochair, Tommy Hicks, will run for reelection, but Zeldin’s consideration follows a relatively lackluster midterm election performance for Republicans, despite the fact that the GOP had six million more votes than Democrats in House races.
Actually according to Politico, McDaniel is running for RNC Chair again:
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel signaled on Monday that she plans to run for reelection as party chair, which would set her up to lead the RNC through the 2024 presidential election.https://t.co/SaJPX9qRvo
— POLITICO (@politico) November 14, 2022
So Ronna McDaniel versus Lee Zeldin for RNC Chair? I know we don’t get a vote, but if I did it would absolutely be for Zeldin, assuming he runs. I’ve always been impressed with him and the fact that he came so close to beating Hochul – just over 5 points behind – is a feat in of itself. Just for context, in 2018 Cuomo beat his opponent by almost 25 points.
But I can tell you that if Zeldin didn’t want to be RNC Chair, then I’d love to see him run for Speaker of the House. You don’t have to be an elected Congressman to be Speaker of the House and I think he’d be amazing at it.
In any event, I think his leadership at the RNC is very much needed right now, given how poorly Republicans did this go around. And I hope he really does run for the seat. I think he could win.