New York Republicans are demanding a reckoning in their own party after a blue wave swept away many of their candidates Tuesday.
Anthony Constantino, one of the last of the state’s MAGA faithful left standing, delivered a scathing assessment of the state party after declaring victory in his North Country congressional race. His profane rant echoed what many are saying behind closed doors.
“In NYS, the Republican Party is mostly a Con Job that helps Democrats win,” Constantino posted on social media. “Even Bruce Blakeman was in on the con. He just wandered around like a headless chicken going from stupid dinner to stupid dinner and charming the ‘party’ while ignoring the people.”
Constantino, who is leading Democratic opponent Blake Gendebien but has not yet been declared the winner, said the party’s ineptitude had robbed him of a bigger victory in his deep-red district. The sticker company CEO griped that the state party opposed him in the primary, which he narrowly won, and said he was forced to shell out $17 million of his own money.
Many said the party has lost its way amid decades of dysfunction. The state hasn’t fielded a viable Republican candidate for New York City mayor in 25 years. The last time a Republican won statewide office was in 2002. The party appeared poised for a comeback four years ago after a better-than-expected showing in the governor’s race and sweeping Long Island’s four congressional districts. But much of those gains were quickly lost.
Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, lost Tuesday’s election by about 20 points to Gov. Kathy Hochul. Democrats expanded their substantial majorities in both the state Senate and state Assembly.
On Wednesday, outgoing Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican who abandoned her bid for governor late last year, told the New York Post the party’s apparatus should be “built from scratch” and called Blakeman’s bid “a low energy campaign with limited resources that lacked an apparatus.”
Blakeman fired back on social media, calling Stefanik a “selfish, do nothing politician that didn’t lift a finger to help Republican candidates in New York this year.”
But beyond mud-slinging attacks were serious pleas for a shake-up. Some, including Constantino, have called for the ouster of State Committee Chairman Ed Cox. Others, like Marc Molinaro, a former Republican congressmember who served in the Trump administration and is now returning to Albany as an assemblymember, made more general calls for change.
