Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, who is considered a candidate for vice president under Donald Trump, speaks during the House Select Committee on Intelligence annual open hearing on worldwide threats at the Capitol in Washington on March 9, 2023. (AP photo — Carolyn Kaster)

Rep. Elise Stefanik is continuing to boost her national profile and her relationship with former President Donald Trump, this time by joining Trump at a campaign rally in New Hampshire just days ahead of the Republican primary there, and amid rumors that she may be his leading pick for vice president.

Trump, who is coming off of a win in the Iowa caucuses this week and riding on high polling numbers in New Hampshire, has reportedly been considering Stefanik, R-Willsboro, for the role.

National outlets, including NBC News, have touted the possibility as Trump is widely expected to pick a woman as his running mate. Stefanik has raised her national profile and become an ardent Trump supporter over the last five years.

NBC News cites an unnamed source who said they were at a dinner with Trump at his Florida home in December discussing his potential running mates, and said Stefanik’s name came up and garnered support from others in the room and Trump himself.

NBC’s source said Trump called Stefanik “a killer.”

A spokesperson for Stefanik did not comment about the report when asked Thursday.

A day after that NBC report, Stefanik is set to join Trump during a campaign rally in New Hampshire. The state’s Republican primary is Tuesday.

“I’m so proud to join my friend President Donald Trump on the campaign trail in New Hampshire on behalf of NY21 and America!” she said Wednesday in a post from her personal account on X, formerly Twitter.

It’s a prominent placement of Stefanik next to Trump as he is openly considering for who his vice presidential nominee should be. With his success in Iowa and continued high poll numbers among Republican primary voters, Trump has routinely tried to downplay the importance of the Republican primary and cement himself as the apparent nominee. Stefanik has echoed that sentiment, recently calling on the remaining two Republican candidates besides Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, to end their bids and rally behind the former president.

It’s not the first time Stefanik has been boosted as a potential running mate to Trump, but it marks the todate culmination of years of support for him by the congresswoman.

Stefanik’s loyalty to the former president has matured over time. While she was publicly tepid on him during the 2016 presidential race, she had become a full-throated Trump supporter by 2019, when she first got national attention for providing a vociferous defense of Trump during his first impeachment proceeding.

Trump called her a “Republican rising star,” at the time, and Stefanik’s profile has only grown from then on. She was named as Trump’s New York campaign co-chair for the 2020 election, taking a front seat in pitching the president to voters in his former home state. At the time, rumors that Stefanik would replace former Vice President Michael R. Pence on the Trump ticket circulated, but those proved to be false.

On Jan. 6, 2021, Stefanik was one of a handful of Republican representatives to openly question the results of the 2020 election that President Joseph R. Biden won. Stefanik cited a legal argument suggesting the results of elections in a handful of states, which voted for Biden, were invalid because the voting procedures for those elections were changed by acts of the state’s courts or election officials, rather than the state legislatures. That argument came amid expansions of mail-in voting provided during the COVID-19 pandemic. Stefanik voted to object to the results of Pennsylvania’s election, but the process was interrupted by the invasion of people in support of Trump, and no other states were successfully objected to. No results were overturned in that process, and a number of bipartisan officials have repeatedly argued that the process changes were proper and the 2020 election was secure, free and fair.

Stefanik in her “Meet the Press” interview on NBC last week said that she would not rule out questioning the results of the 2024 election.

In 2021, Stefanik replaced famously Trump-critical former Rep. Elizabeth “Liz” Cheney, R-Wyo., as the House Republican Conference Chair, putting her in charge of messaging and media prep for House Republicans and into the top of Republican leadership in Congress.

When Republicans took control of the House in the 2022 election, Stefanik stayed on as the Republican Conference chair and took center stage in managing the party’s most fractious period, when a coalition of far-right representatives ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and the party went through rounds of selecting, then rejecting, a new speaker candidate. Stefanik was the most senior member of Republican House leadership not to pursue the speakership.

Eventually, Stefanik’s second in command in the House Republican Conference, vice chair Rep. James “Mike” Johnson, R-La., became the new speaker and the Republican House leader.

She was the first member of Congress to endorse Trump’s bid for reelection in 2023, days before he formally announced his plan to seek the presidency for a third time.

In recent weeks, Stefanik has become even more centered and focused on pro-Trump messaging. Stefanik was at the very forefront of the national debate over antisemitism and hate speech on college campuses, perhaps the most recent manifestation of the “culture war.” Stefanik questioned three prominent university presidents over allegations of antisemitic hate speech on their campuses, asking each one “does calling for he genocide of Jews violate (your institutions) rules on bullying and harassment?”

Each president responded with a similar answer, essentially saying the answer depends on the context of the situation and the specific words and style used to convey the message. Many deemed those answers insufficient, and some of the presidents themselves later made public statements expressing regret for not more clearly denouncing antisemitic speech. Two resigned.

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce, of which Stefanik is a member, is now formally investigating codes of conduct and the handling of on-campus antisemitism at a number of American universities, something Stefanik has taken a lead role in public messaging on.

And most recently, Stefanik made a public statement in support of those being investigated or punished for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, going on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and explicitly calling them “hostages” of a hostile U.S. government.

That messaging, which garnered wide-ranging criticism from those who believe the Jan. 6 attack was an insurrection and an attempt by Trump and his supporters to overthrow democratic order in the U.S., fits directly with Trump’s position on the attack.

Trump has called Jan. 6, 2021 a “beautiful day,” and expressed an undefined intention of pardoning at least some of those convicted of crimes connected to their actions that day.

In her NBC interview, Stefanik didn’t reject the idea of a vice presidential nomination, but she has historically been unwilling to discuss the potential when asked directly.