State Republicans agree on Schumer challenger, disagree on Trump

With Republicans from around the state gathered before him in a downtown Buffalo hotel, Erie County Republican Committee chairman Nick Langworthy issued a call to arms on Friday to his fellow party members.

Langworthy, who helped land the Republican Party’s state convention in Buffalo for the first time in 16 years, told the crowd that victories they have notched in Western New York, where voter enrollment heavily favors Democrats, are proof that even in such a blue state there is an appetite for Republican leadership.

“We win here because we’re able to recruit excellent candidates who have a story to tell, we properly support them with the resources they need to win elections and we run on a message of protecting taxpayers in our community,” Langworthy said. “That has become our Republican brand, and if we can win here we can do it anywhere in New York state.”

Indeed, the Erie County GOP has run a series of upset campaigns, putting Republicans in the county comptroller and clerk’s offices while also regaining and retaining control of the county legislature.

That’s why Langworthy and a host of other speakers throughout the day said they believe that the candidate they were there to designate as the challenger to U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, a powerhouse of national politics expected to be the next leader of Senate Democrats, is capable of blocking him from earning a fourth term.

While the litany of speakers were unified in throwing their support behind Wendy Long, a Manhattan attorney who served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, divisions bubbled below the surface.

The contentious race for the Republican nomination for president forced itself into nearly every speech. Six potential challengers to Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2018 – Rep. Chris Gibson, Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro, former gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, former attorney general candidate John Cahill and former state comptroller candidate Harry Wilson – made their cases, sometimes without naming them, for or against the remaining presidential candidates.

Supporters of frontrunner Donald Trump, including Paladino, Collins and Langworthy, were met with a mixed response ranging from whooping and hollering to blank stares when they spoke of the populist movement the New York City real estate mogul has spawned.

Meanwhile, those speaking on behalf of other candidates, including former U.S. Sen. Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire, who was stumping for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and Broome County Republican Committee Chairman Bijoy Datta, who was pushing U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s message, received far more tepid responses limited to polite clapping at the conclusion of their talks.

Paladino, addressing the crowd with his signature blend of bombast and gravitas, used his time at the mic to call out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other members of the  “Washington elite” for their efforts to de-legitimize Trump’s campaign.

The denouncements of Trump are only serving to bolster the populist wave the leading Republican candidate is riding, Paladino said, as their assertions that the people’s will is illegitimate, with rumblings of a contested convention beginning to surface, only reinforces the notion that people inside the “Washington bubble” believe they don’t have to answer to their constituents.

“People have been festering with this anger,” he said. “Where does that anger come from? It comes from being pushed around a little bit too much.”

After the convention Paladino, who is circulating a pledge to delegates to “get on the bus” and vote for Trump, told City & State that he believes the leading vote getter has awakened a sleeping giant, a “silent majority,” and that the nation is on the verge of a political revolution the likes of which has not been seen in decades.

That, he said, has establishment Republicans shaking in their boots.

“It’s about time that the Washington elite get out of their comfort zone,” Paladino said. “When was the last time we had a brokered convention? When was the last time we had acrimony in the party? This is a political uprising. This is a political revolution that’s taking place.”

But while the praise for Long, the candidate the party unanimously voted to put up to a run for U.S. Senate this fall, was effusive, it remained clear that there is still a great deal for Republicans in New York and across the nation to work out in the months leading up to the national convention in Cleveland.

Langworthy, the Erie County GOP boss who publicly threw his support behind Trump after former Massachusetts governor and former presidential hopeful Mitt Romney denounced the frontrunner yesterday, said he hopes Republicans will come to accept the nomination, regardless of who wins.

“If he wants to go endorse a candidate, God bless,” Langworthy said of Romney. “Go and be the best advocate you can for that candidate.”

Langworthy said Republicans cannot allow any kind of circumventing of the democratic process at the national convention, but that, so long as everything plays out on the level, the fervor and attention the struggle for the nomination is driving will be a good thing for whichever candidate wins the nomination.

“I feel and I see more energy than ever before,” he said.