Ed Cox stepped down Monday as head of the Republican Party in New York, just months after heavy losses statewide in congressional and legislative races led to calls for a leadership change.
Allies say Nick Langworthy, the longtime Erie County Republican chairman who had publicly challenged Cox for the leadership, sewed up a majority of the party’s state committee Monday morning.
President Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign announced Cox’s appointment to the campaign finance team hours after Langworthy allies claimed victory.
Cox, a son-in-law of the late President Richard M. Nixon, had led the New York GOP since 2009. Last year, amid a Democratic “blue wave,” Republicans lost all four statewide races, three congressional seats and their last bastion of power in New York, the State Senate.