N.Y. Republicans Pick a Former Police Detective to Challenge Gillibrand

Mike Sapraicone, who runs a security firm and positions himself as a moderate, was elevated as the preferred Republican nominee. Two more conservative candidates vowed primary challenges.

Mike Sapraicone, in a dark blazer with a United States flag pin on his lapel, speaks to a television reporter.

Mike Sapraicone, who runs a private security firm, won the support of 84 percent of delegates at the New York Republican Party’s convention.Credit...Heather Ainsworth for The New York Times

Nicholas Fandos

By Nicholas Fandos

Feb. 22, 2024

Republicans mounting a long-shot bid to unseat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York selected Mike Sapraicone, a wealthy private security executive, as their preferred nominee at a party convention on Thursday.

Mr. Sapraicone, 67, has fashioned himself as an affable moderate, vowing to outwork Ms. Gillibrand and find solutions to the migrant and affordability crises that the state’s ruling Democrats have struggled to combat.

“It’s about time we had a voice in New York we haven’t had,” he said in an interview, accusing Ms. Gillibrand of having not been “seen or heard” since her unsuccessful run for president in 2020.

The message easily won over the state’s political establishment, which believes Mr. Sapraicone represents Republicans’ best chance to compete in New York. Eighty-four percent of delegates voted in his favor on Thursday at the convention in Binghamton.

But the show of support apparently failed to clear his path. Rather than drop out, two conservative Republican runners-up, Josh Eisen and Cara Castronuova, signaled their intent to petition onto the ballot and allow primary voters to have the final say in June.

That would set up a potentially messy fight that could expose the deep ideological fissures dividing the party. It threatens to force Mr. Sapraicone not only to tap his campaign treasury but also to adopt more conservative positions on subjects like abortion and former President Donald J. Trump that could hurt the party in November.

“Today the party bosses spoke,” Mr. Eisen said. “The rest of the G.O.P. gets the last word in the June primary.”

The stakes may be higher than they appear. Few Republicans actually believe the party can defeat Ms. Gillibrand in a state that has not sent a Republican to the Senate since the 1990s. But party leaders privately say a serious, palatable nominee could help lift Republicans in more winnable races down the ballot, including for key House districts.

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Senator Kirsten Gillibrand looks slightly pensive inside the Capitol, with a handful of people behind her in a blurred background.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is widely expected to win re-election in November, but Republicans hope that a viable candidate can help the party in down-ballot races.Credit...Valerie Plesch for The New York Times

Mr. Sapraicone, whose name arose as a potential candidate in the special House election to replace George Santos on Long Island, formally entered the Senate race on Friday.

He has a compelling biography and deep personal resources that could lift his campaign. The Republican spent 20 years in the New York Police Department and now runs Squad Security, a private firm that employs 600 active-duty and retired cops, according to its website.

But Mr. Sapraicone enters the contest with some baggage. He has repeatedly donated to Democrats over the years. And he was among a group of former police detectives accused in a 2021 lawsuit of having coerced a false confession and suppressed exonerating evidence that kept a man behind bars for decades.

Mr. Sapraicone’s likely primary challengers wasted little time going on the attack, portraying him as squishy on conservative priorities.

“He has questionable views about guns, questionable views on Second Amendment, he’s unclear about his position on Trump,” Mr. Eisen said before the vote.

Mr. Eisen, 52, may be the most formidable threat. The founder of a successful translation business, he also has private funds to pump into his campaign and has the endorsement of former Gov. George E. Pataki.

In an interview, Mr. Eisen described himself as a “Second Amendment purist.” He said federal prosecutors who indicted Mr. Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election outcome had overreached and were attempting to criminalize the techniques of a “scrappy New York real estate guy.”

“He was just literally following legal maneuvers that were legitimate,” he said of Mr. Trump. “They might not appeal to everybody’s tastes.”

Ms. Castronuova, a conservative reporter for Newsmax, appears to be making her own play for Mr. Trump’s support. She has pushed her ability to generate “viral media attention,” defended Jan. 6 rioters and has the endorsement of Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser to Mr. Trump.

“Just like parents should have a choice about what vaccination is put into their child’s body, the voters should have a choice about the candidate that goes into the general election for Senate!” she wrote in a text message.

Given Mr. Sapraicone’s commanding vote totals at the convention, any Republican challenger will have to secure thousands of signatures from voters across the state to make it onto the primary ballot.

Party leaders were already working to kneecap Mr. Eisen. They recirculated old news accounts showing he had received sanctions in court for harassing legal opponents and using racial slurs. (Mr. Eisen said he was “not proud of everything I say all the time” but played down the matter as “business disputes.”)

They also pointed to a handful of donations he made to far-left Democrats, including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York.

“He’s going nowhere in the G.O.P.,” said Jerry Kassar, the chairman of the Conservative Party, a longtime partner to the Republicans in New York. He said both issues “disqualified him.”

Mr. Sapraicone has an even more prolific history of supporting Democrats. Though he has given more to Republicans, Mr. Sapraicone has donated $140,000 to Democratic candidates and causes in New York since 2017, according to state and federal election records.

Gavin Wax, the president of the New York Young Republican Club, singled out one donation on Thursday: a $1,000 contribution from Squad Security to the New York attorney general who just defeated Mr. Trump in a civil fraud case.

“While President Trump is fighting against a politicized persecution of him by Letitia James the @NewYorkGOP under Ed Cox is rushing to coronate anti-Trump RINO @MikeSapraicone,” Mr. Wax wrote on X.

There were signs Mr. Sapraicone was already feeling the pressure.

In the interview, he said he was, in fact, a big supporter of Mr. Trump and called the 91 criminal counts brought against the former president “horrendous.”

Mr. Sapraicone explained that he was a proponent of background checks for firearm purchases — “I know some people don’t agree with that, but that’s important” — but not of a ban on semiautomatic weapons, like the ones frequently used in mass shootings.

And while he said he would oppose a federal abortion ban, he called for more restrictions on the procedure in New York, a state where abortion rights are seen as sacrosanct.

“I don’t like what you hear in New York, where we say you can have an abortion right to term, you don’t have to notify your parents if you’re a minor and regular doctors can do abortions,” he said.

Ms. Gillibrand, 57, is likely to make many of those issues centerpieces of her campaign for a third full term. She has one of the Senate’s most liberal voting records, and is a staunch supporter of abortion rights and gun safety measures and a virulent critic of Mr. Trump. She also has a daunting $9 million in campaign cash on hand.

A spokesman for the senator, Evan Lukaske, said Ms. Gillibrand looked forward to campaigning on her record and “winning re-election this fall.”