U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik is returning to work in the House after expecting to become the next United Nations ambassador.

Elise Stefanik suffered a significant disappointment with the world watching. That couldn’t have been easy.

The Republican congresswoman was set to become the ambassador to the United Nations, a job she coveted and a role so glamorous that it comes with a swanky, $16 million penthouse in Manhattan, purchased in 2019. Stefanik could presumably say goodbye to chicken dinners in Malone or Alexandria Bay, and, in fact, she went on a farewell tour of her 21st Congressional District.

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But when you thrive by the Trump you can suffer by the Trump, who is nothing if not mercurial. After months of delay, the president surprised nearly everyone by pulling Stefanik’s nomination out of concern about the GOP’s narrow House majority and how the effort to replace her was unfolding in the unruly North Country.

“It was a disappointment in the moment, but there’s opportunity ahead,” Stefanik told me, adding that she sees overcoming setbacks as a theme of her career. “It has turned out to be almost a blessing in disguise.”

The word “almost” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, but Stefanik noted the outpouring of support she’s received from the party and its rank-and-file voters. Among Republicans,........

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