For Immediate Release
November 7, 2025
Contact:
Fred Balzac, NY21CongressWatchdogs@gmail.com, 518-588-7275 (cell)
SARANAC LAKE, NY — NY-21 Congress Watchdogs said today that Rep. Elise Stefanik has been bad for the district and that, as governor, she would be bad for New York. The group highlighted Stefanik’s ties to wealthy special interest donors, McCarthyite theatrics against college presidents, her spewing of white nationalist “great replacement” propaganda, support of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” efforts and backing of a Trumpist agenda that has especially hurt NY-21. Group leaders pointed to her consistent refusal to hold in-person town halls and naked opportunism as a reflection of her disdain for her own constituents.
“Elise Stefanik’s entire career has been funded by corporate donors and special-interest groups, and she has faithfully carried water for them over the last decade in Congress,” said Fred Balzac,one of NY-21 Congress Watchdogs lead organizers and a 30+-year full-time resident of what is now New York’s 21st Congressional District. “These include billionaire vulture capitalist Paul Singer, chair of the reactionary Manhattan Institute that helps supply Trumpism with its policy agenda, as well as his firm Elliot Management; Apollo Global Management, founded by the disgraced billionaire and Jeffrey Epstein-investor Leon Black and now led by Marc Rowan; and Silicon Valley oligarch Marc Andreesen. Ms. Stefanik raised huge amounts of campaign cash last year after her show trials of elite-college presidents in which she demagogued about pro-Palestinian protesters on their campuses. As governor, it’s clear she would work for their interests rather than what is best for the people of New York.”
In the view of the NY-21 Congress Watchdog group, Stefanik is a terrible representative of the people: she refuses to meet in-person with constituents at town halls and, on those increasingly rare occasions when she does appear before the general public–such as at the Clinton County government center in Plattsburgh–Stefanik has the tendency of leaving the stage at the slightest sign attendees were displeased with her. She’s marched in lockstep with the Trumpist agenda, even as it pummels the economy in NY-21. As it’s next to the Canadian border and dependent on trade and tourism, whic has collapsed in 2025, the district’s small businesses and working-class citizens are disproportionately impacted.
“Unfortunately, Stefanik has parroted the Trump regime’s ever-changing rationales for its anti-immigrant, anti-worker, authoritarian policies rather than meet her responsibility as member of Congress and represent her district by challenging policies that have hurt her constituents and millions of other hard-working Americans,” Balzac continued. “One can only imagine in horror the damage she would do as governor of New York!”
As her constituents, the NY-21 Congress Watchdogs Elise as an opportunist: changing from a self-proclaimed centrist in 2014 and Trump skeptic in 2016 to a pro-Trump MAGA Republican after her committee clashes with Rep. Adam Schiff that went viral in 2019. She rose to the number-three position in the US House of Representatives in 2021 after backing Trump’s anti-democratic “Stop the Steal” effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“Can you imagine any state, let alone diverse New York, with a Governor that repeats white nationalist ‘great replacement’ propaganda?
“We’d love for Rep. Stefanik to sit down with her constituents and explain why she supports policies that have hurt her district. Unfortunately it seems like she’s more interested in fleeing NY-21 than representing it,” concluded Balzac.
NY-21 Congress Watchdogs is a non-partisan group committed to educating district members about the legislation sponsored and positions held by their elected officials. Those wishing to get involved should contact the group at NY21CongressWatchdogs@gmail.com.