Nick Langworthy beats Carl Paladino in NY-23 House race

Nick Langworthy, chairman of the New York GOP, earned a narrow victory in the Republican primary for the state’s 23rd Congressional District on Tuesday, topping Carl Paladino, whose incendiary rhetoric brought attention to the race south of Buffalo.

Langworthy beat Paladino by about 4 percentage points, according to incomplete Board of Elections results. The Associated Press declared Langworthy the winner in the red-leaning district at 12:34 a.m. on Wednesday.

Paladino, a 76-year-old former GOP nominee for governor, drew headlines during the race when audio surfaced showing him saying in 2021 that Adolf Hitler is “the kind of leader we need today.” He apologized for the remark.

Nick Langworthy, left, and Carl Paladino.

Paladino did not immediately concede to Langworthy on Wednesday. But in an afternoon statement, he declared it “time to move onto the next chapter” of his life.

“I am forever grateful for this community,” he said in the statement. “I will always advocate for Western New York.”

Langworthy, now set to face Max Della Pia, the Democratic nominee, described the Republican race as a “campaign about ideas and the brand of leadership that we need for Western New York and the Southern Tier.”

The 41-year-old Langworthy, who grew up in South Dayton, N.Y., credited voters in southwestern New York’s rural Southern Tier for sending him on to the general election.

“The Southern Tier made me the comeback kid,” he said in a victory speech. “This is an overwhelming victory.”

But the race between the pair of Trump-supporting Republicans was no landslide: less than 2,000 votes separated Langworthy and Paladino in the latest count as of Wednesday afternoon.

Paladino, who has been trailed by a history of racist remarks, lost to Andrew Cuomo by almost 30 percentage points in New York’s 2010 election for governor.

Langworthy has been the chairman of the state Republican Party since 2019, when he became the youngest New Yorker ever to assume the role.