Are New York Republicans coming around to Trump?
The state Republican Party held its convention in Buffalo over the weekend. Buffalo has long been a Democratic enclave, but its geographic proximity to the more conservative pockets in Western New York and the Rust Belt made the city a natural host.
Buffalo is also the home to one of New York’s most outsized and controversial Republicans, Carl Paladino, the 2010 GOP gubernatorial nominee whose penchant for off-the-cuff remarks and knack for self-promotion are eerily similar to a certain billionaire leading the Republican presidential field.
City & State’s Buffalo reporter Justin Sondel spent some time shadowing Paladino at the convention, and I asked him to set the scene and answer some questions: Is Paladino effective as a Trump surrogate? Does Trump have a base of support in a predominantly blue city? What, if anything, can we glean from the convention in terms of New York’s role in the presidential election?
Here’s Justin’s dispatch:
Carl Paladino stood in the hallway outside a Marriott conference room in downtown Buffalo shortly after the state GOP convention had concluded.
A group of women surrounded and joked with him, one gently touching his shoulder as they recounted their large group dinner the night before.
An Oneonta woman leaned in close. “He picked up the tab,” she tells me. “It must have been five grand.”
After the women have finished bidding Carl adieu – he’s known simply by his first name in political circles, Western New York and beyond – two men from Yates County approach.
“We’re big fans of what you’re doing,” one of the two men says before they both shake his hand.
Carl has asked each of the delegates he’s been talking to if they’ve signed a pledge he’s been circulating affirming their support for Donald Trump, the current Republican presidential frontrunner.
They all tell him they have.
Paladino, as is his wont, is far and away the most vocal of the growing number of Western New York Republicans who want to put Trump in the White House and, if the event was any indicator, he’s drawing a crowd.
In recent weeks Trump has also gained the support of Rep. Chris Collins, who was the first sitting member of Congress to endorse the real estate mogul. Nick Langworthy, the Erie County GOP boss, announced his support for Trump, a reaction, he said, to the former presidential candidate Mitt Romney saying that the Republican convention might be contested if the Donald is to be the nominee.
The pushback from that statement – a sentiment that has been hinted at by a number of Republicans, including several candidates – seems to be resonating.
Assemblyman Ray Walter, who is a supporter of Ohio Gov. John Kasich, told me as the state convention was wrapping up he was taken aback by the notion that the winner of the most delegates might not get the nomination.
“Whoever gets the most votes has to be the nominee,” he said.
Meanwhile Paladino, whose political style has drawn comparisons to Trump, has been beating the same populist drum that he used to whip up support during his unsuccessful bid for governor in 2010, a contest in which he won 33 percent of the vote against the heavily favored Democrat, Andrew Cuomo. It seems as though it’s catching the ear of more Republicans from around the state, who are getting in line behind, as Paladino is fond of describing Trump, their “native son.”
Justin’s description of the reaction to Romney’s recent remarks struck a chord with me, and raised the question of whether Trump’s iconoclastic streak and party pariah status would galvanize support around his candidacy, even among non-Republican voters.
A Siena poll released on Monday suggested otherwise. While Trump has a 27-point lead over his rivals, he still gets trounced in a national election by either Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.
What bears watching is the discord between the Republican National Committee, who have outright shunned Trump – as evidenced by Romney’s remarks – and the local affiliates, like the New York GOP, who seem to be coming around to the idea of Trump as their nominee. Even if the New York Republican establishment finds Trump’s more extreme politics revolting, it makes sense for the party to capitalize on the high turnouts he has been generating as it relates to their down-ballot tickets.
After all, it’s easy to come around to a polarizing candidate when party preservation is at stake.