The minute Stefanik threatened to leave her seat, the district’s Republicans began to tear themselves apart with factional infighting.

A note on some truly shocking news: Without prior warning, Donald Trump has withdrawn New York Representative Elise Stefanik’s nomination for ambassador to the United Nations. Republicans on Capitol Hill are genuinely surprised about this: Stefanik is an impressive figure, well-liked across the party, and was set to sail through confirmation with 53 enthusiastic Republican high-fives and a few extra Democratic votes behind her to boot. (I will personally add that I think she would have done a fine job there — she has proven herself an effective cross-examiner and advocate while in Congress.)

So what happened here? The immediate assumption was that it had to do with the remarkably narrow House majority that the Republicans currently wield, and so thankfully Donald Trump helped all pundits out mightily by confirming that this was at least the cover story:

With a very tight Majority, I don’t want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat. The people love Elise and, with her, we have nothing to worry about come Election Day. There are others that can do a good job at the United Nations. Therefore, Elise will stay in Congress, rejoin the House Leadership Team, and continue to fight for our amazing American People. Speaker Johnson is thrilled! I look forward to the day when Elise is able to join my Administration in the future. She is absolutely FANTASTIC. Thank you Elise!

Things are already incredibly dicey for Republicans in special elections this year, and they’re liable to get worse starting next Tuesday in Wisconsin. But as tempted as some are to attribute this move to Republican electoral jitters in general — though these always lurk beneath the surface — this move may actually be exactly what Trump says it is. It’s worth reading between the lines here, with some understanding of the unique political topography of the congressional district Elise Stefanik represents.

When Trump writes “I don’t want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat” there is likely more here than generic language. Stefanik’s NY-21 district, encompassing the vast, supermajority-rural “North Country” of the state, has a surprisingly long history of being torn between Republican Party factions, as befits the unique political temperament of one of America’s borderlands. It codes as “red” on a presidential level but betrays a fickle populist sentiment that can self-defeatingly divide against itself, as it famously did in 2009, when Barack Obama cleverly plucked its popular long-serving representative John McHugh as a “bipartisan” pick for secretary of the Army.

Back then, the New York GOP had a moderate and accommodationist attitude toward the incoming Obama administration wildly at odds with the resistance-minded mood of the GOP grassroots, and when they designated a pro-choice, pro-Obamacare moderate Republican named Dede Scozzafava the candidate to replace McHugh, the grassroots vehemently spit the bit. In what was in retrospect one of the founding moments of the Tea Party movement, dissident conservative Doug Hoffman announced a third-party candidacy in the race and immediately hoovered up the endorsement of every single prominent conservative talk show host and politician in America. Scozzafava soon dropped out of the race altogether, realizing she had no support within the Republican primary electorate.

The result? Democratic Congressman Bill Owens, who not only won the special election in that 2009 race (Scozzafava endorsed Owens, proving that the district’s voters were right about her all along), but continued to hold this nominally “red” seat for two more terms, until retiring to let Stefanik take the seat. This is why people are jumpy about her seat — for another split between the state party and the grassroots is brewing.

The New York State Republican Party itself has been unable to officially agree on a designated candidate. (Why? Because they remember 2009, that’s why.) Meanwhile, New York’s Conservative Party has endorsed state Senator Dan Stec. (I don’t want to get into a tedious explanation of New York’s election laws here; let’s just say that their various ballot lines are a great way to split an otherwise united voting bloc, and we at National Review do not regret it even the slightest bit.) Then there’s Anthony Constantino, by far the most demonstratively “MAGA” candidate in the entire race, who is now threatening a third-party run à la Hoffman because Stec is too moderate. The potential for disaster brews, and with Republicans already jumpy about Randy Fine winning the race to replace National Security Adviser Mike Waltz in Florida’s 6th District next Tuesday, it actually makes decent sense for Trump to recall Stefanik to keep the seat safe.

But before we end, ponder for a moment what this says about the fragility of the “MAGA coalition.” Stefanik, as a strong pro-Trump voice, was untouchable in the seat so long as she occupied it. The minute she threatened to leave, however, the district’s Republicans began to tear themselves apart with factional infighting in a race to claim the mantle of “most Trumpish” — to the point where, once again, it seems entirely plausible they could forfeit the race to an opportunist Democrat smart enough to fake moderation. The unique nature of New York’s ballot laws makes this dilemma far more acute there than in other states — but it reflects a broader, increasingly osteoporotic, weakness in the bones of the Republican coalition.