Greetings from Garden City, Long Island:
We (myself and Wayne County Republican Chair MaryAnne Nicosia-McCarthy) are attending the 2022 New York State Republican Convention (February 27-March 1) that started with a reception and rally. The energy has been amazing and the message of unity and change has been powerful. We have celebrated numerous local election victories in 2021 across the state and here in Nassau County, where the Democrats handily outnumber the Republicans.
We have heard from New York State Republican Chairman, Nick Langworthy, former Governor George Pataki, host County Nassau Chair. Joe Cairo, Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt, Assembly Republican Leader Will Barclay, former 2018 Republican Governor candidate, Marc Molinaro and various other elected officials.
Today, we have heard from various candidates for statewide office and chosen three of them as our Republican designees. They are a strong, diverse and gifted group of people.
COMPTROLLER:
First, we nominated our New York State Comptroller candidate, Paul Rodriguez, a bi-lingual New York City native. Joe is highly experienced in the banking and financial fields and will bring a professional and unbiased approach to carrying out his responsibilities for fiscal responsibility and financial oversight.
US SENATE:
Then, in a contested race, Joeseph Pinion, received 82% of the vote to be designated as our candidate for the United States Senate. Those of you who were able to attend last year’s Wayne County Republican Chairman’s Club dinner will remember that, at the last minute, Nick Langworthy was unable to attend and asked Joe Pinion to attend in his absence.
Like last May in Wayne County, today, Joe Pinion was eloquent, spoke with passion and was on target with issues important to New Yorkers. His experience in giving political and societal analysis on Newsmax has given him a platform to be heard in the state. He will be a dynamic candidate for the party this fall.
(Those of us in Wayne County have all heard MaryAnne Nicosia-McCarthy give a nomination speech or two over the years. Well, today she took it to another level by giving an amazing seconding speech for Joe Pinion that resulted in wild applause from the convention attendees.)
ATTORNEY GENERAL:
Finally, Michael Henry, was chosen as our candidate for Attorney General. (John Sarcone, who had visited Wayne County as a candidate at our reorganization meeting in September, addressed the convention and respectfully withdrew his candidacy for the sake of party unity.) Mike, a New York City resident, with experience in corporate litigation, received the unanimous support of the delegates at the convention.
On Day 2 of the Convention…we heard from numerous elected officials from Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Claudia Tenney sent a video greeting speaking about Gerrymandering and election integrity.
GOVERNOR:
On to the Main Event, Lee Zeldin was nominated to deafening cheers, his running mate, a 20 plus year veteran of the NYPD is as ready to serve NY as Lee is.
Also nominated were Andrew Giuliani, recently employed by President Trump, and Westchester County businessman Harry Wilson and Rob Astorino from Westchester.
Zeldin took over 85% of the vote.
The work starts now. Wilson, Astorino, and Giuliani announced that they were going to Primary. The Sheriff of Lewis County, who was not even nominated this week, announced that he was going to Primary.
Lee Zeldin and Alison Esposito at the top of the ticket, Joe Pinion for US Senate and the balance of the ticket are the best chance that the GOP has had since Pataki’s win in ‘94. It was obvious that this is what the State Committee members, County Chairs and the Delegates wanted.
These people have worked hard for the better part of the year to go County by County and meet with us. There comes a point that we stand by the Party and the decision of the Party for the good of the Party.
Reporting from the NY State GOP Convention from State Representative for Wayne County, Bob Oaks of Macedon
