Republican county chairmen are likely to defy their state party leader by refusing to anoint a gubernatorial candidate today at a summit in Albany, party insiders tell The New York Sun.

The county chairmen appear to be divided between two probable candidates: a former governor of Massachusetts, William Weld, and a former Assembly minority leader, John Faso. Urban areas are leaning toward Mr. Weld and rural counties are backing Mr. Faso. But county chairmen who represent at least a fourth of the vote say they are going to abstain.

With many party leaders expressing ambivalence about today’s meeting, there’s a strong possibility that county chairmen will hold off a vote to endorse a Republican candidate to compete against the presumptive Democratic nominee, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, in next year’s governor’s race.

Such a result would increase the likelihood of a rare New York Republican gubernatorial primary in September, an outcome that the state party chairman, Stephen Minarik, has fought hard to avoid.

Mr. Minarik, who called the meeting so that county chairmen could agree on a consensus candidate early in the race, is facing stiff resistance from Republicans who say they are undecided and are wary about rushing an endorsement.

The chairman of the Republican Party in Lewis County, Sam Villanti, said he wasn’t “sure it’s the appropriate time to vote. I’m not sure we should be rushing into this thing.” He said the party might be doing more harm than good by moving ahead with an endorsement.

The chairwoman of the Montgomery County Republican Committee, Lore Koppel, said, “My people are not ready to commit. They say it’s too early.” A bit facetiously, she said she was “still dreaming that Mr. Bloomberg is going to run for governor or Rudy Giuliani will take pity on us.”

Republicans are descending on Albany at an anxious moment for the party, which is being pulled in various directions. Republicans are finding themselves under pressure to compromise between a candidate who represents party principles and someone who has strong fund-raising capabilities.

With Jeanine Pirro possibly bowing out of the race for U.S. Senate against Senator Clinton today, New York Republicans lack a clear contender in two of the most important statewide races.

There were conflicting reports as to whether Mrs. Pirro will end her campaign. The Daily News reported yesterday that Republican insiders had said Mrs. Pirro would pull the plug today. “The rumors and speculation that Jeanine Pirro is dropping out of the Senate race tomorrow are false,” a Pirro campaign spokeswoman, Andrea Tantaros, said on Sunday, according to the Associated Press. The Associated Press cited a high-ranking state Republican who said that Mrs. Pirro would take a few days to consider her plans.

If the county leaders do go ahead with a vote, Mr. Weld is expected to emerge as the winner under the party’s rules, which weight the votes of the county leaders by the population of Republicans voters in each county. Mr. Weld has support from some heavily populated counties, including Manhattan, sources said.With or without a majority vote, Mr. Weld’s campaign will likely use today’s results as evidence that Mr. Weld has the best shot at defeating Mr. Spitzer.

“We need to coalesce behind a candidate and get going now,” a spokesman for Mr. Weld’s campaign, Dominick Ianno, said.

The party chairmen of Suffolk, Nassau, and Queens counties, which together represent a little more than a quarter of the vote, are not expected to participate in the poll, a strong sign that they are waiting for Thomas Golisano, the billionaire business owner from Rochester, to enter the race.

Mr. Golisano, a three-time losing gubernatorial candidate and a founder of the Independence Party of New York, has recently changed his party registration to Republican and has been encouraged to run by Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno.

Other chairmen, in states with fewer Republican voters, say they plan on backing the candidacy of Mr. Faso, who now works as a lobbyist. A few counties may lean toward Randy Daniels, who served as secretary of state under Mr. Pataki for four years and is a member of the board of trustees at the State University of New York. Others of the 23 county chairmen interviewed by The New York Sun said they were still undecided but would vote.

“I’ve got to be honest with you,” the chairman of the Chautauqua County Republican Committee, John Glenzer, said, “this thing is so mixed up.”

The committee chairman of Rockland County, Vincent Reda, who represents 2.34% of the Republican vote, said it was too early to make a decision. “You got to make sure all the horses are in the race,” he said.

A failure to come to a consensus would represent a defeat for Mr. Minarik, who took the reins of the party a year ago with the backing of Governor Pataki and a reputation for getting Republicans elected in Monroe County in western New York, where he has served as the party’s county chairman since 1992.

He has staked his leadership on the strategy of anointing a gubernatorial candidate before the new year, warning that Republicans were losing ground to Mr. Spitzer, who has immense name recognition as the state’s highest law enforcement official and is outpacing Republicans in fund raising.

Mr. Minarik has publicly come out in favor of Mr. Weld, an experienced politician and native New Yorker who cut taxes, crime, and entitlement spending while serving as governor of Massachusetts in the 1990s.

Mr. Minarik has also faced criticism for his public spats with other potential candidates. In an interview with the Times Union, Mr. Minarik said, “Albany insiders like Faso and Manning and Daniels, because that’s what they are, insiders, all they do is snipe. It’s all about who you can knife next.” He ridiculed Mr. Faso’s candidacy, doubting its ability to raise enough money to oppose Mr. Spitzer. On NY1 last month, Mr. Minarik accused Mr. Faso of living in “la-la land.”

Some Republicans, however, have bridled at a Weld candidacy, expressing fear that Mr. Weld’s liberal views on certain social issues, like abortion, would make it impossible for him to receive the critical endorsement of the New York Conservative Party. Some have also said they feared that the decision about whom to endorse was being made from the top down.

“Whatever happens in that room depends on how hard Minarik pushes in there, and some of the county chairmen are going to push back,” a former executive director of the Republican state committee, Brendan Quinn, said. If Mr. Minarik pushes Mr. Weld’s candidacy too hard, he said, “The whole thing will blow up on him.”

Ryan Moses, the executive director of the state Republican Committee, defended the party chairman, saying Mr. Minarik has “said from the beginning that this is a county chair-driven process. We’ve had eight meetings across the state where potential candidates for statewide office have been screened. Ultimately, it’s up to the county chairs whether or not there is going to be a vote.” He wouldn’t say whether there would be a vote today.

Mr. Faso, a former Assembly minority leader who narrowly lost to Alan Hevesi in the 2002 state comptroller’s race, downplayed the importance of today’s vote, which is not legally binding. “It may bring some clarity in terms of who the leading candidates are, but it’s not going to resolve anything,” he told the Sun in a telephone interview yesterday.

County weights are determined by calculating a county’s percentage of the statewide Republican voters in the 2002 general election. Some county chairmen say the weight for more urban counties does not accurately reflect how Republicans vote because Republicans in upstate counties have higher turnout rates in primaries than in general elections.

Another possible candidate for governor, Assemblyman Patrick Manning, the tallest elected official in America, said, “From what I hear, people want the Manning alternative,” which he described as more meetings between county leaders and candidates and a possible primary.