Republicans Still Seeking Latimer Challenger

Though Republicans are still seeking a candidate to run against first-term state Sen. George Latimer, one local official said the party would ultimately field a challenger for the Hudson Valley seat.

Petitions had been submitted for Jean Maisano, the public relations director for a Westchester County nonprofit whose husband has party ties at the local and state level, but on Monday she declined to run. With Maisano's decision, the GOP has to find a candidate this week to replace her on the ballot.

“We’re in the process of interviewing candidates, and we have two candidates we’re going to interview tomorrow evening, and then it’s likely we’re going to replace Jean Maisano with one of those two by the end of the week,” Doug Colety, the chair of the Westchester County Republicans, said. “Jean Maisano was interested and then decided not to run. So we’ve had numerous people express interest at one time or another. We just want to put the best candidate forward.”

Colety declined to identify the two potential candidates, but he did confirm that John Spencer, the former mayor of Yonkers, and Bob Cohen, a businessman who ran against Latimer last year, would not run.