COURIER LIFE, DECEMBER 10-16, 2021 29
BY AIDAN GRAHAM
An intra-party fi ght has
broken out within Brooklyn’s
often-marginalized Republican
Party, as a conservative
bigwig is looking to usurp the
leadership of the Kings County
GOP — citing consistently “disappointing”
electoral results,
including in the 2021 citywide
elections.
“Despite the Red Wave that
swept much of the rest of the
City, here in Brooklyn we once
again had mostly disappointing
results,” said Stephen Maresca
in a statement. “I fear that we
are quickly acclimating to accepting
losses in every contest
as long as it’s not a blowout.”
Maresca, who currently
serves as the executive director
of the Kings County Republican
Party, is now looking to
move up the ranks and take on
the role of Kings County GOP
chairman — the top job in the
county’s party organization,
which is currently held by Ted
Ghorra, who took the post in
2016 and showed no signs of letting
go of the reigns.
“I am proud of the work that
our Brooklyn Republican Party
has done under my leadership,”
Ghorra said. “Our work has
been steady, productive, and
looks to additional future successes.
These are real, tangible
gains upon which we will continue
to grow while I am chairperson.”
Ultimately, party insiders
will meet sometime next summer
to decide the now-contested
leadership question, with hundreds
of county committee
members (hyper-local electeds
that represent a few square
blocks each) having a say in the
decision.
Republican district leaders
(42 unpaid elected posts, each
representing an entire assembly
district) will also have outsized
sway in the decision, as
many county committee members
often allow the district
leader to vote on their behalf
using “proxy votes.”
That will force Ghorra, Maresca,
and any other potential
challengers to appeal to both
higher-level political insiders,
as well as the grassroots base of
the GOP — composed of many
increasingly frustrated Republicans,
who bemoan the lack
of sway in local politics, compared
to their Democratic counterparts.
An uncompetitive party
In the announcement of his
intentions to challenge Ghorra’s
grip atop the local GOP, Maresca
slammed the party boss’
“facile excuses” for the Republican
Party’s near-irrelevance in
local politics, and promised to
grow the party’s footprint from
Greenpoint to Coney Island.
“Conditioning our voters
to be happy with electoral defeats
across the board will end
any chance that our Party has
of playing a meaningful role
in any public policy decisions
affecting Brooklyn,” Maresca
said.
Currently, Brooklyn is
home to just three elected Republicans:
newly-elected Sheepshead
Bay Councilmember
Inna Vernikov, along with US
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis and
state Assemblymember Michael
Tannousis, who both represent
Staten Island and portions
of southern Brooklyn.
While the 2021 city elections
did see increased turnout from
Republican voters, and multiple
closer-than-expected races, the
party of elephant-logos barely
competed in the majority of the
borough’s elections.
Much of the reason for Republicans’
lackluster results
stem from a severe disadvantage
among the number of registered
red voters — as there are
over 1.2 million enrolled Democrats
in Brooklyn, compared to
just 148,416 Republicans.
In his statement responding
to Maresca’s challenge, Ghorra
highlighted the 2020 victories
of Malliotakis and Tannousis,
as well as Vernikov’s win in November,
while boasting about
an increase of 18,700 registered
Republicans during his tenure
as chairperson. (Though
the borough saw nearly 155,000
new registered Democrats during
the same timeframe).
“In the face of incredible
challenges, we have changed
the politics of the borough for
the better, including having increased
active Republican voter
registration by approximately
18,700,” Ghorra said.
Intra-party squabbles
When he took the Brooklyn
GOP’s top job in November
of 2016, largely with the help
of Republican stalwart Marty
Golden, Ghorra laid out a public
vision for increasing diversity
and inclusion within the
party’s ranks, while focusing
on providing voters with tangible
benefi ts to aligning with the
Republican party.
That breath-of-fresh-air vision
would fail to last long,
though.
Having offi cially assumed
the post shortly after the divisive
election of President Donald
Trump, the Democratic
party saw a huge wave of grassroots
energy, leading to a pair
of “Blue Wave” elections in 2017
and 2018.
When Mayor Bill de Blasio
ran for reelection in 2017, Malliotakis,
his then-Republican
challenger, barely cracked 30
percent of the vote share in
Brooklyn. Meanwhile, that
year saw Democrats take home
victories in all 16 of the borough’s
Council districts.
The following year saw brutal
losses for the Grand Old
Party, as Democrat Max Rose
secured victory in the race for
Congress in Bay Ridge and
Staten Island over Republican
incumbent Dan Donovan. Likewise,
Sen. Golden also lost to
upstart Democrat Andrew Gounardes
that year, along with
other red-to-blue shifts.
The party did slightly rebound
in 2020 and 2021, with
greater Republican turnout
that propelled the borough’s
only three elected Republicans.
That is not enough for some
Republican politicos, though,
and they’ve taken aim at
Ghorra, saying he failed to deliver
on his inclusive promises.
Christine Parker, a woman
of African descent, who ran for
Crown Heights’ Council seat in
2017 as a Republican, blasted
the current leadership regime
for failing to have a “strategic
platform in place to grow the
party” and having “no intention
of being inclusive.”
“I am not a big fan of the
gross ineptitude of the leadership,
as unfortunately Ted is
in charge,” Parker said. “He
doesn’t reach out to central
Brooklyn. When I ran my race,
I had no support, with the exception
of a check – but that’s
not real support.”
Rather than attempting to
build bridges into majorityminority
communities, Parker
said, the party leadership has
become content with resting
in their southwest Brooklyn
strongholds.
“We don’t run any candidates
in other parts of the borough.
So why would anyone believe
in the Republican party?”
she asked.
Both Parker and Maresca
argued that party leadership
has become overly consumed
by doling out jobs to political
allies, both as consultants on
campaigns, as well as working
for the notoriously-patronageladen
Board of Elections.
“We should be focused on
electing candidates, not making
sure people make money from
campaigns,” Maresca said.
“Basically, they’re just lining
their pockets. A Lot of
folks get on campaigns…and
they don’t have any idea what
they’re doing,” Parker said,
adding that political insiders
often don’t challenge leadership
for fear of missing out on jobs.
“They like the thought of working
for the BOE, so they don’t
rock the boat…but, it’s like, get
a real job.”
Others bemoaned the type
of candidates being tapped for
the party’s nomination.
Mark Szuszkiewicz, the
2020 Republican nominee for
Coney Island’s Assembly seat,
and the 2021 Republican nominee
for the area’s Council seat,
for example, had voiced support
for the conspiracy theory
QAnon. Nevertheless, Ghorra
“proudly endorsed Szuszkiewicz.”
The candidate lost both
elections.
Laying out a vision
Even the optimistic Maresca
conceded that Republicans
have a long trek before seriously
competing in borough-wide
elections in solid-blue Brooklyn
— but, he says, their footprint
could be considerably expanded,
potentially giving the
party tangible infl uence over
the lawmaking process in New
York City.
“We can do well in this
county. We may not elect the
majority of Council seats, or
borough president, or District
Attorney,” he said. “But there
are large pockets of Brooklyn
that we can do really well.”
The would-be party boss
pointed to various ethnic enclaves
in the borough that have
seen recent rightward-shifts
as reason for optimism for the
GOP, and urged Republicans to
keep pushing at the grassroots
level for their support.
“The nature of Republicans
and the Republican Party in
Brooklyn are changing,” Maresca
said. “The Orthodox community,
and the Russian community,
are now very strong
Republicans.”
Parker added that voters in
predominantly-Black neighborhoods
of central and southeastern
Brooklyn could be
convinced to align with Republicans,
but the current leadership
hasn’t made inroads.
“People of African and Caribbean
descent are conservative.
Most of the folks, they
won’t tell you this, but they
align with the ideas of Republicans,”
she said. “But they vote
with Democrats, because who
wouldn’t want to be with a winner?”
As for his chances to assume
the organization’s top gig, Maresca
said he was “confi dent.”
“I get calls regularly from
party activists, and district
leaders who say…we’d be better
off with another chairman,”
he said.
RED VS. RED
Leadership battle erupts among
Brooklyn’s Republican party