Sliwa gets clean sweep from Republican Party chairs, who still say they won’t give Adams the ballot line

The Queens County Republican Party endorsed Guardian Angels founder and radio personality Curtis Sliwa for New York City mayor Wednesday night, Chair Anthony Nunziato confirmed to City & State. The move further narrows the path for New York City Mayor Eric Adams – a registered Democrat – to run on the GOP line via a Wilson-Pakula, as has been floated in recent weeks.

“Curtis had all the answers and visions of how NYC should be,” Nunziato said via text message Thursday morning. 

Getting a Wilson-Pakula would require the authorization of at least three of the five county parties. The Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island parties had already thrown their support behind Sliwa – all before Sliwa formally entered the race Feb. 14 – and the Manhattan GOP did the same Tuesday night. The Queens GOP’s choice was the nail in the coffin. 

In theory, a party could opt to endorse one candidate and allow another to run on the party line using a Wilson-Pakula, though that would be extraordinary. Richard Barsamian, chair of the Brooklyn GOP, suggested following his party’s backing of Sliwa that allowing such a thing would not be in the spirit of the endorsement, emphasizing repeatedly that the Brooklyn Republican Party was whole-heartedly behind Sliwa. “We have already endorsed (Sliwa), but we will also be on the road with him, which is a very, very valuable tool, because to work without the endorsement is a very, very difficult upriver swim,” he said last week. Likewise, Nunziato said his party’s endorsement means they won’t grant a Wilson-Pakula to embattled the Democratic mayor. 

While some have posited that a call from President Donald Trump – whom Adams has cozied up to as of late as the Department of Justice controls the mayor’s legal fate – might sway the party chairs to let Adams run on the Republican line, at least for Nunziato, that wouldn’t change things. “Not according to the consensus of my committee,” he said, referring to himself and the Queens GOP’s district leaders.