While tens of thousands of people packed the inside and outside of Nassau Coliseum for President Trump’s big rally, I think back to the set of political circumstances that may have charted a much different course for the man who served as the 45th President of the United States.
I’ve been to many President Trump rallies since the business owner and political outsider famously glided down his Trump Tower escalator on June 16th, 2015.
My history with the man who will become our 47th President goes back to the year before in 2014, when the New York State Republican Party was encouraging then just political outsider and billionaire businessman Donald J. Trump to run for New York Governor.
My close friends Michael Caputo and current New York State Assemblyman David DiPietro led the charge to corral Trump to run against Andrew Cuomo, who would have been seeking his first re-election bid. Also on the recruitment efforts were then Erie County Republican Committee Chairman Nick Langworthy, now serving honorably in the United States Congress.
Since I was the highest elected Republican at the time serving as the Erie County Comptroller, I was invited to a private dinner with President Trump to see if there was any interest at all in a potential gubernatorial run.
At the time I was the first Republican in 40 years to win a county-wide race, having defeated a Democratic incumbent in the same year Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney in 2012.
While it is extremely difficult for a Republican to win in dark blue counties across New York State, our committee was strong and successful across the board.
We had a Republican Sheriff in Tim Howard, former Erie County Executive Chris Collins defeated incumbent Congresswoman Kathy Hochul (does she sound familiar), we elected Republican State Senator Mark Grisanti in a massive Democratic district, and yours truly won a county wide race for Comptroller despite Republicans being outnumbered eight-to-one in the city and two-to-one county wide.
If Trump were to run for Governor, it would have made sense to have our successful operation on board very early.
Following this private dinner with President Trump, my brother Dan got a quick photo with Donald Trump where he told him to run for President, not Governor.
What none of us knew was that President Trump was already exploring the political possibilities of running for Commander in Chief, most certainly not Governor of New York. Of course, our Hail Mary failed, thank God, and Donald Trump successfully ran for President of the United States in 2016.
That recruitment effort back in 2013 and 2014 was most definitely on my mind during the President’s rally a decade later in Long Island. I had served in a Deputy Communications role at the 2016 Republican National Convention, and served as a media surrogate from time to time since then. I’ve been to a ton of similar rallies since.
Not surprisingly to “political insiders” the path to victory in a race for New York Governor is far more challenging than winning a race for President of the United States.
President Trump chose wisely to run for Commander in Chief, despite our best efforts to get him to run against Andrew Cuormo.
Which takes us to this past week’s rally in Long Island. No Republican presidential candidate has won New York since Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale in 1984.
The odds are most definitely stacked against President Trump in 2024 defeating Kamala Harris in the Empire State, the same way they would have been against him had he run for Governor in 2014 and against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
That didn’t stop Team President Trump from rallying the enthusiastic faithful at Nassau Coliseum, with a little over one month to Election Day 2024.
It’s still mind boggling to me that had President Trump accepted the offer to run for New York Governor, how different our state and country would be. The Empire State would most certainly not resemble the “People’s Republic of New York” the way it does now if he had been successful.
The nation and world would not have reaped the benefits of him serving as Commander in Chief.
So here we are, ten years later, with President Trump running for a second term. I’m confident in his victory with 297 Electoral College votes against Kamala Harris in the race for the White House. I’m just glad his address will once again be 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and not 138 Eagle Street in Albany, home of the Governor's mansion.