Elise Stefanik, Reinvented in Trump’s Image, Embodies a Changed G.O.P.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — On the second floor of an upscale golf resort near Jacksonville this past week, House Republicans gathered for drinks as they kicked off a three-day retreat to plot their path to winning the majority in this year’s midterm elections.

Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, dressed down in a fleece vest, stood in one corner while Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia hustled in and out of the reception area. But it was Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 3 Republican and an architect of the party’s message, who was running the show, working the room with her 7-month-old son on her hip.

A year ago, the same House Republican retreat was fraught with drama as Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who then held the third-ranking leadership post, publicly denounced former President Donald J. Trump’s election lies. That prompted a backlash from other Republican leaders, who swiftly moved to oust her and install Ms. Stefanik in her place.

This year, with Ms. Stefanik acting as the event’s organizer and M.C., there was little dissent on display. Inflation, immigration and President Biden’s failures were played up, while Mr. Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election and his denial of any responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol did not even merit a mention — a mark of how thoroughly the party has rallied around the former president.

That Ms. Stefanik, 37, would be hosting this particular party seemed fitting. A once-moderate Republican who worked in President George W. Bush’s White House and was a protégé of former Speaker Paul D. Ryan, she is the embodiment of the rapid shift in the Republican Party. In just a few short years, she has morphed from the conservative mainstream into an unlikely star of the MAGA universe and a die-hard Trump loyalist.

In an interview on the sidelines of the party retreat, her reinvention was on vivid display. Ms. Stefanik repeated Mr. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being stolen and refused to acknowledge Mr. Biden as the legitimately elected president.

“Joe Biden is in the White House right now — the American people understand that — but they do have questions,” she said in between a lunch with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a dinner with the author of a book called “Woke, Inc.”

“In my district, I still get questions about it,” Ms. Stefanik said, adding, “I think there are constitutional questions on the unconstitutional overreach of unelected individuals in states like Pennsylvania.”

And as her party veers toward extremism, Ms. Stefanik refused to condemn the Republicans who speak most loudly to the fringe. Asked about Ms. Greene, who recently spoke at a white nationalist event, and Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, who has called President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine a “thug,” she said the two were merely reflecting the views of the voters in their districts.

“They represent their constituents, and they are held accountable for the statements they make,” Ms. Stefanik said, noting the House Republican conference as a whole did not share their views.

It has been a rapid…