Can NY’S GOP come back?

With the loss of its majority in the state Senate, New York’s Republican Party finds itself devoid of any significant power in state government. That leaves New York with one-party rule and Republicans with an existential question: What’s next?

The party’s losses in November mean Democrats now hold all the statewide elected positions — governor, attorney general and comptroller — and control both the Senate and Assembly.

From the Republican Party’s perspective, there are two fundamental ways to look at this. On the one hand, a party lacking of any meaningful role in governing is likely to struggle for relevance, not to mention financial support. On the other hand, a party unburdened by the demands of leadership has the luxury, if not the imperative, of ref lecting on how it can reinvent itself in ways that might appeal to more New Yorkers.

The reality for the GOP is that it is losing New Yorkers’ allegiance. Since the last statewide elections in 2014, it lost 100,000 enrolled voters, while Democrats gained 500,000. The rolls show twice as many enrolled Democrats as Republicans — 6.3 million compared with 2.8 million. The Conservative Party doesn’t add much to the right side of the political ledger, with barely 157,000 voters, a number that is also eroding. If the party chooses to wage only a battle of numbers, of rural upstate versus downstate and upstate’s urban centers, the GOP’S future is dim.

But it can choose something else. It could fight a battle of ideas for the future.

Right now, Republicans seem to be going out of their way to cater to a far right base that thrives on toxic discourse. A case in point is the Metropolitan Republican Club’s hosting in October of a leader of the Proud Boys, a violent outfit designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group and considered by the FBI to be an extremist group. Yet leaders like state Republican Chairman Ed Cox apparently prefer to treat the Proud Boys as just another legitimate voice in a party that these days reflects Donald Trump’s divisive nationalism more than the message of unity sounded by the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln.

Another case worth the party’s reflection: The backlash in the 19th Congressional District to the Republicans’ racist campaign against Democrat Antonio Delgado, who unseated Rep. John Faso.

The question for Mr. Cox and other GOP leaders is whether they want the New York Republican Party to be known as the party of the Proud Boys, Carl Paladino and Roger Stone, or the party that’s a credible heir to the legacy of figures like Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, U.S. Sen. Jacob Javits, Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz, and state Sens. John Dunne and Roy Goodman — leaders who were thoughtful, forward-thinking, and — take note of this, Republicans — electable in New York.

Many of the initiatives Democrats say they intend to pursue are laudable, but one-party rule is inherently undesirable in the long run. New York needs a vibrant two-party system, and so does a nation that once looked to New York as a wellspring of ideas across the political spectrum. That won’t happen, though, until Republican leaders embrace values in line with those of more New Yorkers.

the issue: after losing the state senate, republicans find themselves powerless in state government.

the stakes: one-party rule is not a good prospect over the long haul.