Future of the New York GOP
What comes next for the Republican Party in New York State?
While the GOP has the presidency and U.S. Senate, the party was devastated in statelevel elections in New York this month. With wins for governor and in key GOP State Senate seats on Long Island, Democrats now control all levers of power in Albany for the first time in around a decade. They also have more than a 2-1 state registration advantage over their counterparts.
That doesn’t mean the party’s over: Expect to see successful Republicans when Democrats frustrate their constituents, as happens even in places like left-leaning Massachusetts. But it has been a decades-long and often downhill slog for Republicans here since days of Assembly control and competitive gubernatorial races, and local antidonald Trump sentiment won’t help the right in 2020.
We asked Republican officials and consultants to weigh in about the party’s future, and here are some of their takeaways.
More diversity
We heard this one a lot:
“First and foremost, we must appeal to a wider audience,” says Suffolk County GOP chair John Jay Lavalle.
The Long Island Republican noted that the party needs to learn to better speak to women, Hispanic and African American voters, who have often aided Democrats.
Lavalle says that conservative messages may resonate with those voters, many of whom he characterized as family-oriented and religious.
It helps to have a candidate from the community you’re looking to appeal to, one who can be authentic and also wellfunded.
For Rob Ryan, a longtime Republican consultant who recently worked on Assemb.ly member’s Nicole Malliotakis’ unsuccessful 2017 campaign for New York City mayor, it would help to have a dynamic figure for future statewide runs: a “black or Hispanic Arnold Schwarzenegger, or a hugely successful businessman.”
Different ideas, and the cesspool
William F.B. O’reilly, a Republican consultant who worked for gubernatorial challenger Marc Molinaro, sees some light at the end of the tunnel. “The complete wipeout” this year is “an opportunity to rekindle the