Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) has emerged as a key figure in the impeachment inquiry, suddenly making herself a household name with President Donald Trump’s supporters as well as Democrats who want to see her unseated in 2020.

The third-term congresswoman, who has clashed with party leadership during her career, is now drawing cheers from prominent Republicans over her defense of Trump and her spats with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) during impeachment inquiry hearings.

During Friday’s hearing with former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, Stefanik’s exchange with Schiff went viral. Like her Republican colleagues, Stefanik has cast Schiff as the villain and is capitalizing off of her attacks on the chairman. She has now started to use Schiff’s image in ads meant to attract donors and build her list of potential supporters.

Stefanik, once the chairwoman of the moderate Tuesday Group, has leaned into her support for Trump, repeating his terms such as “The Radical Left” in fundraising appeals. And Republicans are aligning behind her. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) sent out a fundraising appeal Monday to benefit both her and Stefanik’s campaigns, urging supporters to donate to “stand with President Trump.”

Meanwhile, Stefanik’s Democratic opponent is also making a name for herself. Tedra Cobb, a strategic consultant who lost handily to Stefanik last November, said on Twitter she raised more than $1 million since Friday’s hearing. If that figure is accurate, Cobb will have already surpassed her own 2018 midterm haul of $1.5 million.

Popular Twitter personalities, ranging from Star Wars actor Mark Hamill to conservative lawyer and Trump critic George Conway, urged users to donate to Cobb’s campaign.

“Democrats fear Elise so much that they began a nationwide fundraising campaign for her opponent,” tweeted Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), urging supporters to donate.

Stefanik didn’t disclose how much campaign cash she pulled in over the same period. But her rapid rise in popularity among conservatives could help her re-establish herself in Trump’s GOP.

Following devastating Republican losses last November, Stefanik resigned from her post at the National Republican Congressional Committee to expand her leadership PAC that is dedicated to electing Republican women. She would later spar with the NRCC over her decision to back women candidates in Republican primaries.

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The 2018 midterms saw a record number of women elected to Congress. But the increase was driven almost entirely by Democratic women. Just 13 Republican women were elected, the lowest number since the 1992 midterms. Stefanik has lambasted the “crisis level of GOP women” in Congress and the party’s reluctance to help new women candidates she helped recruit.

Stefanik’s leadership PAC is setting out to give Republican women a needed boost. E-PAC raised nearly $344,000 through June, surpassing its midterm total, and dolled out $125,000 exclusively to Republican women candidates.

“Oftentimes getting through the primary is the toughest challenge for Republican women candidates, so I made the decision to identify and support the top female candidates early,” Stefanik told City & State magazine.

Following Stefanik’s promise to meddle in primaries, the PAC gave the maximum $10,000 to Joan Perry, one of several unsuccessful candidates in the Republican party for North Carolina’s 3rd District special election earlier this year. It also contributed $5,000 to Republican primary candidates in two competitive Florida races.

Just as Stefanik has never been a well-known member, she’s never been a powerful fundraiser. Her biggest fundraising haul came in 2016 when she pulled in $3.1 million ahead of an easy election day win.

With Stefanik focusing her fundraising efforts around attacks on Schiff, that could change quickly. A similar strategy has worked out well for the House Intelligence Committee’s top Republican, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who has more cash on hand than any other House member.

Most House Republicans, with the exception of Trump’s most vocal defenders, struggle to gain traction with coveted small-dollar donors. After earning praise from Trump himself for her performance during Friday’s hearing, Stefanik will look to build on her meager small donor pool that accounts for just 5 percent of her campaign money.

Researcher Grace Haley contributed to this report.



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