Why can’t the state GOP find a leader?
As chairman gets ready to resign, party’s familiar upstate, downstate fight fuels feud
NEW YORK — The Republican Party in New York, fresh off one of its best elections in two decades, is somehow entangled in turmoil.
With its chair, Rep. Nick Langworthy, set to resign this month, the party has been immersed in a fraught battle over who will replace him — baring familiar fault lines between upstate and downstate, old guard and new blood, and how closely to align its identity with former President Donald Trump.
Hopeful candidates have come and gone, sometimes in a matter of days, unable to marshal enough support because of old feuds and new scrutiny over credentials — fueled in part by fears of anointing another Rep. George Santos, RN.Y. and serial liar whose election and subsequent exposure fractured and embarrassed the party.
The search for a new party chair was so stymied that in February, Long Island Republicans successfully pushed the vote back a month in want of better candidates.
Then, on Wednesday, the race for the chairmanship took an unexpected turn when news leaked that a past chair, Edward Cox, was planning a last-minute campaign.
Cox, a Harvard-educated lawyer who is the son-in-law of Richard Nixon, was seen to have a well of support in New York City and its suburbs. But news of his candidacy was not universally embraced, leaving Republicans in New York with a passel of possible options, a flurry of phone calls to make to whip up support, and no clear sense of when consensus might be found.
“People have been getting in and out like people change their socks,” said Assemblyman Chris Tague, who is also running for party chair.
Tague, a former dairy farmer who heads the party in Schoharie County, said he was “a little shocked” by Cox’s decision.
“I have a lot of respect for him, but really, it’s time to move on.”
That sentiment was echoed by other candidates, including Susan Mcneil, the party chair in Fulton County, who said she didn’t “want to go backward” with Cox.
All of it reflected a party eager to maintain momentum after a year in which New York Republicans flipped key congressional seats, helping their party seize a narrow majority in the House, and ran closer than expected in several high-profile races, including for governor. But Democrats still won all four statewide races, a streak that dates to 2002.
Indeed, without a statewide Republican leader in elected office, it will be up to the new party chair to lead candidate recruitment and fundraising to fend off Democratic challengers during a presidential election year in 2024. Democrats are already signaling they plan to spend at least $45 million trying to flip seats back to their control in New York.
Cox, who has deep ties to the city’s Republican donor class, is offering himself up as a tested hand who could smooth over the party’s strained finances and serve as a bridge to a new generation of leaders.
He quickly picked up the endorsement of another downstate candidate, Lawrence Garvey, who said Cox’s experience running the party for a decade made him the best choice.
“He can do it because he’s done it,” said Garvey, who is the party chair in Rockland County.
Cox has remained active in New York Republican politics since he stepped down as chair, after serving from 2009 to 2019.
He, along with former Rep. John Faso, helped orchestrate a successful legal challenge last spring that struck down new congressional districts that had been gerrymandered by Democrats. The two men teamed up again last fall to form a super political action committee, Save Our State Inc., that spent at least $7 million to try to elect Lee Zeldin, the Republican nominee for governor.
The latter initiative has been the subject of a state Board of Elections investigation into whether the Zeldin campaign violated state law by coordinating with it and another super PAC supporting his candidacy.
Langworthy, who was elected to represent the 23rd Congressional District in November, had no comment on the race to succeed him. He is still serving as chair in a term that technically lasts until September, though he has made it clear that he wants to step down and concentrate on Congress.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, the Trumpaligned congresswoman from Schuylerville who is the third highest-ranking Republican in the House, has also been publicly mum about the race. She declined to comment, but has spoken to several candidates in recent days.