ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – New York’s under-the-gun Republican Party will hold its state nominating convention on Long Island, the suburban battleground often the key to winning statewide elections, officials announced Tuesday.

Statewide polls show the potential GOP candidates trailing badly in the all-important races for governor and in the party’s attempt to unseat or at least badly bloody Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in her bid for re-election. Many believe the Senate race is a prelude to a presidential run by Clinton in 2008.

State GOP Chairman Stephen Minarik said the decision to hold the convention on Long Island marked a “long-overdue return to our party’s base.” The convention will be held at the Garden City Hotel in Nassau County and at Hofstra University May 31-June 1.

The GOP has suffered some significant setbacks on Long Island in recent years as Democrats now control the county executive jobs in both Nassau and Suffolk counties. The island was once considered a GOP stronghold.

“It’s a recognition that Long Island is an important part of our Republican base to win statewide. We need to do better than what we’ve been doing,” Minarik told The Associated Press.

“It’s critical. There are a lot of Republicans who sit out there,” he added.

In fact, one reason the GOP is heading to Long Island for its convention is to boost the fortunes of members of its state Senate majority.

“That doesn’t hurt either,” said state Sen. Michael Balboni, a Long Island Republican.

Should Republicans lose the governor’s race, the Senate could be the last bastion of GOP power in state government given that Democrats have an overwhelming edge in the state Assembly.

The last time a state GOP convention was held on Long Island, in 1974, the late Malcolm Wilson was nominated to run for governor in his own right. He had taken over as governor after Nelson Rockefeller resigned in December 1973. The former lieutenant governor lost the 1974 governor’s race to Democrat Hugh Carey.

The Democrats said the choice of Long Island demonstrated how bad things were for the GOP.

“You know the Republican Party is in trouble if it considers a place where it lost both (county) legislatures and county executives its `base,'” said state party spokesman Blake Zeff.

“If the Republicans consider Long Island their base, we’re in very good shape,” the Democratic Party official added.

Democrats announced earlier they would hold their nominating convention in Buffalo, a western New York Democratic stronghold in an area that also has been a key battleground in statewide races. That convention is being held May 30-31 and will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.

With Republican Gov. George Pataki having announced in July that he would not seek a fourth term, Minarik is backing the gubernatorial candidacy of former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, the scion of a wealthy Long Island family. He moved back to New York in 2000 and still has a home on the island.

Weld is being challenged for the GOP nomination for governor by former state Assembly Minority Leader John Faso, also a Long Island native, and by former New York Secretary of State Randy Daniels, a one-time news correspondent for CBS-TV.

The Democratic nomination for governor is being sought by state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi. Polls show Spitzer far ahead of Suozzi and any of the Republicans.

The GOP Senate nomination is being sought by former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer, former Reagan-era Pentagon official Kathleen Troia “KT” McFarland and a little-known tax attorney from Sullivan County, William Brenner.

At the state party conventions, candidates who win at least 25 percent of the weighted delegate voting earn automatic spots on the September primary ballot. Failing that, candidates can only get on the primary ballot by collecting the signatures of party members statewide, a time-consuming and expensive process. The conventions allow party leaders to shine the spotlight on their favored candidates.