NEW YORK (AP) — There was a time, not long ago, when Elise Stefanik would not say Donald Trump's name.

He was simply "my party's presidential nominee," she would say. The pragmatic New York congresswoman was far more focused on welcoming a new generation of voters to what she hoped would be a more inclusive Republican Party.

Today, Stefanik is one of Trump's fiercest defenders in the House of Representatives, where her loyalty to the former president — and the support he returned — has carried the 36-year-old to the brink of becoming one of the most powerful women in Congress. She is widely ex...