What in the World Is Happening With the New York GOP?

New York City’s Democratic mayoral candidates are attacking Governor Cuomo for accepting more than $120,000 in donations from registered Republicans and refusing to attack President Trump more forcefully. Mr. Trump’s short-lived former communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, and his wife each donated the maximum $2,100 to Mr. Cuomo.The Home Depot billionaire, Ken Langone, donated to Mr. Cuomo’s super PAC. A MAGA influencer, Tanya Zuckerbot, co-hosted a “Women for Cuomo” fundraiser and hashtagged a picture of herself with Mr. Cuomo on Instagram with a reworking of Mr. Trump’s signature slogan, #makeNYCgreatagain.It should come as no surprise — in a field with Democratic Socialists of America-backed Zohran Mamdani, Comptroller Brad Lander, and a slew of other far-left candidates — that moderates are flocking to Mr. Cuomo. The real question, though, should be: Where is the New York Republican Party?Just five months after Mr. Trump earned the best showing — 30 percent — for a Republican in the city in 30 years, the New York Republican Party is pulling out the big guns to capitalize on that momentum: Curtis Sliwa 2.0.Mr. Sliwa, age 71, is best known for his signature red beret and founding the Guardian Angels volunteer crime prevention organization — almost half a century ago. He ran for mayor four years ago and lost to Eric Adams with only 27 percent of the vote. His splashiest press hit that year was a New York Times profile of him in in his 320-square-foot apartment with a dozen cats.Mr. Sliwa is the only Republican candidate running for mayor this year. There will be no Republican primary. “There is no Republican Party in the State of New York. It’s a paper organization. Ed Cox doesn’t know where he is half the time, I hate to say it,” the president of the New York Young Republican Club, Gavin Wax, tells The New York Sun of New York GOP chairman, Ed Cox.“We haven’t seen such great opportunity in this state in a generation. I mean President Trump’s numbers were historic for such a blue state like New York, and they could be building on that growth,” Mr. Wax says. “It’s a real shame they’re not doing candidate recruitment. They’re not doing work on the ground. It’s a totally MIA situation.”Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf agrees. “The Republican Party in New York City is defunct,” he tells the Sun. “The result of that in New York City is that we have two Democratic parties, the mainstream Democrats and the Mamdani-Lander wing.”One would think this would be a good year to run a strong Republican for mayor. The city’s crime crisis took center stage at the start of the year after several high-profile violent subway crimes, including the burning of a homeless woman on the F train. Since then, violent crime rates have fallen. The migrant crisis is costing New York City billions. Rents continue to rise. Half a million residents have moved out of the city since the start of Covid. Where is the next Michael Bloomberg or Rudy Giuliani? The owner of storied Brooklyn institution, Junior’s Cheesecake — there are now two Junior’s restaurants in Manhattan as well — Alan Rosen tells the Sun he seriously considered running for mayor this year as a Republican. A telegenic businessman who describes himself as “socially liberal and fiscally conservative,” Mr. Rosen says he tried to “get some outreach from the Republican Party.” The New York Post ran two articles last year about his potential run. He spoke with political consultants and planned to run as a Bloomberg-style political outsider who would take a “business approach” to running the city.“I made a little outreach and didn’t get much back, to be honest,” he says of the local Republican Party. He says it’s a “shame” that “on the Republican side, there’s not much going on.” This reporter’s mother, Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York, also considered running and had a similar experience.Mr. Cox runs the state’s Republican Party, but the city’s Republican Party is in effect led by billionaire supermarket magnate Jon Catsimatidis, though he serves no official role. Mr. Catsimatidis ran for New York mayor as a Republican in 2013 and lost in the primary to former MTA chairman, Joe Lhota. His daughter, Andrea Catsimatidis, is the chairwoman of the Manhattan GOP.The chairman of the Harlem Republican Club, Oz Sultan says he is impressed by her. “She comes up into the hood. She helps us out with events. She does things you wouldn’t think that someone who looks like that would do,” he says.Andrea Catsimatidis married Mr. Cox’s son in 2011. They have since divorced, but the families remain close. Mr. Cox is the son-in-law of President Nixon. When the Sun spoke with Mr. Catsimatidis on Thursday evening, he was travelling by car with Mr. Cox.Mr. Catsimatidis told the Sun in January that he was considering running again for mayor this year, but he ultimately decided against it. “Last time I spent $12.5 million. This time I would have spent $20, $25 million of my own money,” he told the Sun on Thursday. He said he decided against it in part because he didn’t think “it was a winning thing.”A GOP party official who did not want to be named tells the Sun that Mr. Catsimatidis mulling a run for mayor every cycle scares away formidable candidates because he can self-finance to the tune of millions. “He who has the gold makes the rules,” Mr. Sheinkopf says.Before Mr. Sliwa announced his run for mayor in February, he worked as a radio host for WABC, a network owned by Mr. Catsimatidis. Mr. Sliwa has since taken a leave of absence.A source close to Mr. Catsimatidis says that, despite the billionaire’s unofficial control of the city’s GOP, he wants Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, to win the mayor’s race. She says Mr. Catsimatidis has a rule on his radio network that hosts are not to criticize Mr. Cuomo. She says that before Mr. Sliwa took his leave of absence, he criticized Mr. Cuomo on his program and “the president of the station was like running down the hallway and told him to go to commercial, cut it off.”Mr. Cuomo raised $1.5 million in his first two weeks in the race. He is ahead by double digits in all recent Democratic primary polls. Mr. Sliwa has raised only $76,000. When asked about Mr. Sliwa’s poor haul, Mr. Catsimatidis joked, “That much?”Mr. Catsimatidis says he may donate $250 to the Sliwa campaign, which he says is the maximum for someone who does business with the city. Seemingly like Mr. Trump, who famously donated to Hillary Clinton for strategic business reasons, Mr. Catsimatidis is careful about whom he criticizes. “Right now I’ve been supporting Eric Adams because he’s cooperating with President Trump and cooperating with Tom Homan,” he said.When asked whether he would vote for Mr. Sliwa or Mr. Cuomo if those are the two candidates in the general election, Mr. Catsimatidis equivocated. “I don’t know what I’m going to do right now. Right now, it’s primaries. I’m going to vote for whoever is going to keep New York City safe,” he said. “I will make my decision later.”“Businesspeople want stability, and they see Andrew Cuomo as the stabilizing force,” Mr. Sheinkopf says. On the seeming conflict of interest, even though Mr. Catsimatidis does not have an official role with the GOP, Mr. Sheinkopf says, “You can’t create wins and campaigns without conflict, which means people will dislike you.”Mr. Sheinkopf says the New York Republican Party now functions as “a club,” not a political party. He says the party has made gains in the outer boroughs with council races and mobilizing Hispanics, blacks, and Asians, but it is seemingly giving up on winning citywide races. Despite being a blue city, New York had a Republican mayor — or Republican-turned-Independent — from 1994 to 2013. The state had a Republican governor, George Pataki, from 1995 to 2006.“Parties die because they don’t do their job. A party’s job is to create conflict and to create around ideology, and then to win races. The Republican Party in New York City, in Manhattan, does not win races and does not create competition,” Mr. Sheinkopf says. “The probability of Sliwa winning is about as much as I have growing a second head.”The chairman of the Bronx GOP, Mike Rendino, tells the Sun the party did try to recruit two new mayoral candidates this cycle. His first choice was Andrea Catsimatidis, whom he calls “well spoken” and “very competent,” but she declined. The other was Yankees president and former Giuliani administration official, Randy Levine. He has since donated the maximum $2,100 to Mr. Cuomo’s campaign.“You got to be really insane to go that route,” the chairman of the Queens GOP, Anthony Nunziata, tells the Sun of Republicans supporting Mr. Cuomo. “You’re not going to find more real of a New Yorker than Curtis.”The chairman of the Brooklyn GOP, Richie Barsamian, also tells the Sun he has full confidence in Mr. Sliwa. He thinks the issues of crime and public safety, plus a divided Democratic Party, will help Mr. Sliwa win. These three GOP borough chairmen say they have full confidence in Mr. Cox as the state’s party chairman. Ms. Catsimatidis, the Staten Island GOP chairman, and Mr. Sliwa did not return the Sun’s request for comment.“Ed Cox presided over the utter collapse of the Republican Party of the State of New York,” Mr. Wax says of Mr. Cox’s 12 years running the party. “We reached the lowest levels of representation in the State Assembly, in the City Council, in our congressional delegation, and lost the State Senate. We never won a single statewide race. We never won a single citywide race.”Defenders of Mr. Cox note that Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin came within five points of beating Governor Hochul in 2022. They say to look at upstate and Long Island races. They say the party’s focus rightly should be on winning the governor’s race next year, not wasting resources on deep blue New York City. Mr. Cox did not want to comment on the record. For now, it seems, this New York City adage will remain: If you want to decide elections, you have to register as a Democrat and vote in the primary. “The club is fully on board with leadership change up and down the ranks of the Republican Party in the State of New York,” Mr. Wax says._______________Correction: Thirty percent is the vote won by President Trump in the 2024 presidential election in New York City. Mr. Trump’s vote total was given in correctly in the bulldog.

What in the World Is Happening With the New York GOP?

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