ALBANY – Grassroots GOP leaders, including dozens upstate, overwhelmingly favor Mayor Giuliani as their party’s candidate for Senate next year, a Post survey shows.
The survey, conducted last Monday through Friday, found 85 percent of the state’s county GOP chairmen see Giuliani as their strongest possible candidate against First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Just 13 percent backed Long Island’s Rep. Rick Lazio; and 2 percent favored fellow Long Islander Peter King.
The survey found party leaders hungering for leadership from Gov. Pataki, whom they overwhelmingly said should endorse a Senate candidate “sooner rather than later.”
The chairmen were also nearly unanimous in saying they don’t want the GOP to hold a potentially divisive primary for the Senate nomination next year.
The Post survey reached 52 of New York’s 62 county GOP chairmen, in all major population centers and rural and upstate regions.
All chairmen were guaranteed their names and the counties they represent would be kept confidential, because there is widespread fear in GOP ranks that Pataki, who tacitly backs Lazio, will punish party leaders who support Giuliani.
Asked to pick from the announced field of three possible candidates, 44 party leaders named Giuliani as the strongest possible Republican candidate.
Giuliani’s support was broad-based and came from counties with some of the heaviest Republican populations as well as some of the most rural, distant and lightly populated.
Seven GOP leaders backed Suffolk County-based Lazio; one backed Nassau County’s Rep. Peter King, who also says he’s eyeing the race.
But Giuliani’s support dropped to 36 and Lazio’s rose to 13 when chairmen were asked to name whom they would like to see as the GOP nominee, as opposed to whom they thought was the strongest.
Virtually all of the party leaders said they don’t want to see Giuliani and Lazio fight it out next year in a party primary for the GOP nomination. And an overwhelming number of chairmen, 44, want Pataki to endorse a Senate candidate “sooner rather than later.”
Lazio has said he expects to declare his candidacy for the Senate later this summer; Giuliani is expected to enter the race in early fall.