Reports say NY GOP Chair Nick Langworthy, Carl Paladino to face off in NY-23 primary
BUFFALO, N.Y. — The race for New York’s 23rd Congressional District is shaping up to be very interesting after reports that Nick Langworthy, the Chair of the New York State Republican Committee, and Carl Paladino, a big time Buffalo developer, are going against each other in the primary.
This comes after Congressman Chris Jacobs announced he will not be running for re-election after he was criticized for his support of gun control legislation.
The campaign for this mid-term election will involve a brand-new district. The district represented by Congressman Collins now has been redrawn into something called New York 23. It includes parts of Erie County, and all or parts of 6 other counties all along the Southern Tier, bordering Pennsylvania. The district is a lock for Republicans, so this primary is critical.
Shawn Donahue, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University at Buffalo, says, “I think the fair assessment is whoever wins the Republican primary is very likely to be the next member of Congress from this new district.”
On Sunday, Paladino announced he believes he qualifies for the ballot to run for the 23rd Districts Congressional seat.
“With his enormous personal wealth, he can if he wants to self-fund and buy a lot of TV and radio ads,” said Donahue. “He doesn’t need a lot to give him more name recognition but the candidate that often raises and spends the most often has a good chance of winning.”
Donahue says Paladino has both the funds and name recognition to win the Republican primary race.
Jack O’ Donnell, Managing Partner of O’Donnell and Associates, says, “I’ve talked to a number of party activists, elected officials, Conservative Party officials who all confirm to me that Nick Langworthy is running for Congress.”
O’Donnell is a local political analyst and says Langworthy will also be on the primary ballot.
“I think a lot of this is going to come down to what the turnout looks like,” said O’Donnell. “If you have a high Republican turnout that favors the better-known Carl Paladino. If it is a smaller turnout, with few more insiders, and regular primary voters that favors Nick Langworthy.”
Paladino and Langworthy are both Conservative Republicans and have even supported each other in the past.
“There aren’t a lot of ideological differences here, but there’s certainly huge differences in personality,” said O’Donnell. “Langworthy has always been more of an insider and perhaps more cautious in his speech. Where Paladino says what he wants to say and sometimes says something different the next day.”
Donahue says beyond name recognition and funding it will be interesting to see who former President Donald Trump endorses for this race.
However, whoever wins the primary election on August 23, will likely be the next member of Congress for the district.
“Both of them are from Erie County and in a good chunk of the voter base in this primary in August will be in the Southern Tier, so it will be incumbent upon both of them to sell themselves to the voters in the Southern Tier,” said Donahue.
Both political experts say this race could be hotly contested and even if others decide to also run, all eyes will be on Paladino and Langworthy.