GOP Rep. Mike Lawler announced on Wednesday that he will seek reelection in the House in a win for President Donald Trump.

“After months of deliberating over this and really working through it, I’ve decided the right thing to do for me and my family and my district is to run for reelection,” the New York Republican said on Fox News.

“My seat was determinative of control of the House back in 2022 and again in 2024,” he added.

Lawler had been weighing a challenge to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and criticized the Democratic politician on Wednesday, calling her “the worst governor in America” and saying she needs to be defeated in 2026.

His decision is a win for Trump who had made it clear that he would prefer for the two-term congressman to remain in the narrowly divided House rather than risk losing a GOP seat.

“Keeping the House majority is critical if we’re going to continue to move this economy in the right direction. I’m proud to have delivered on my key promise, which was to lift the cap on SALT in the one big, beautiful bill. That is a big win for New York. It’s the single largest tax cut in the whole bill. And I’m proud to run for reelection on my record and win next November and keep the House Republican majority,” Lawler said on Fox News.

GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York praised Lawler in a statement on Wednesday and said she will make her own decision on running for governor after this year’s November election, which includes the New York City mayoral race.

Stefanik had been inching towards a run for New York governor after launching a new state PAC in June. It came after her team commissioned internal polling against Hochul, a source familiar with the matter told CNN last month.

“Mike Lawler is a great, effective, and hardworking Representative for New York’s 17th Congressional District and is committed to protecting the House Republican Majority,” Stefanik said in a statement on Wednesday. “I will make a final decision and announcement after this year’s November election which we are all focused on.”

Stefanik was pulled in March from a nomination to be US ambassador to the United Nations over concerns of slim margins in the House. Trump said he pulled the nomination to help preserve the House GOP’s razor-thin majority.

The president has been focused on keeping the Republican majority and has been working behind the scenes to secure more GOP seats. Trump and his team have said they believe they can squeeze five more seats out of Texas as part of a Republican redistricting effort in the state.

Lawler’s decision is a much-needed boost for Trump and the GOP’s push to hold onto the House next year in the midterms.

His seat in New York’s Hudson Valley is one of his party’s most competitive districts in the country — one of just three won by Kamala Harris in 2024. Republicans are already preparing to potentially lose one of those seats, as Nebraska GOP Rep. Don Bacon decided to retire from the House this cycle.

Lawler flipped the seat in 2022, marking the House Republican’s biggest upset of the cycle as he defeated the House Democrat’s campaign chief, former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney.

Lawler easily defeated former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones in the 2024 race but is expected to face a more competitive Democratic field next time around. His former opponent, Maloney, has suggested he could run again for the seat in 2026, which would bring an immense Democratic war chest to the race.

CNN’s Veronica Stracqualursi and Kristen Holmes contributed to this report.