Nick Langworthy, who is currently serving as chair of the New York State Republican Committee, listens to supporters as they voice their concerns at the Elbow Room restaurant in Elmira, N.Y., Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. Langworthy is running in the Republican congressional primary for New York's 23rd District. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Facing fellow Republican Carl Paladino in a primary this week had state Party Chairman Nick Langworthy in the fight for his political life. Shortly after polls closed Tuesday across the new Congressional District 23 that stretches from Erie and south to Chemung County, there was a sense of distress noted by The Buffalo News at the Langworthy headquarters in Clarence.

If it was coming from local polling, that made perfect sense. In the region for where both candidates reside, Paladino was winning by a 2-to-1 margin. It looked bleak for the home base.

That all began to change around 10 p.m. as Langworthy received the life preserver that was barely found in the Buffalo suburbs. It came from rural upstate.

On Tuesday, the Pine Valley graduate won every Southern Tier county in the district with more than 63% of the vote with one exception — Cattaraugus. There, the margin was about only 300 votes.

In the end, dedicated Southern Tier Republicans had spoken louder than their metropolitan counterparts.

That collective voice wanted someone who understood and lived their way of life, not a candidate who was too bold and brash to understand small-town America.

“Tonight, the Southern Tier made me the comeback kid,” Langworthy said in a video posted to his Facebook page. “This is an overwhelming victory to the hours and the miles on the road in what was a very short campaign. … I learned a lot of values growing up in the Southern Tier but one was when you confront a bully you punch him in the face and you take him down a peg and they won’t mess with you again.”

Had Paladino won, the Republican chairman may have lost it all. It is no secret that Langworthy appears to be giving more time to running his own campaign than he is in seeing through the race for governor. That was supposed to be the most important contest in 2022.

Give credit to Lee Zeldin, Republican candidate for state governor. He continues to stick to the issues while the party chair has abdicated some responsibility that he had undertaken once Zeldin was annointed the candidate of choice for the party.

In a Zoom call with supporters and media on Aug. 11, Langworthy praised Zeldin while noting the party’s mission is “to fire Kathy Hochul.

“Lee has been working tirelessly every single day,” Langworthy said in his opening remarks. “I have never seen a candidate work harder than Lee has.”

Realistically, Zeldin has had no choice but to fend for himself. With Langworthy’s priority focused on the Congressional seat, there can be no doubt the governor’s race is just not as significant to the dual-role party chair.

Making matters worse was on the night that Langworthy made his comeback, news on the campaign trail for Zeldin worsened. In a poll conducted between Aug. 17 and 22 by SurveyUSA on behalf of WNYT-TV in Albany, Hochul had 55% of the support with Zeldin scoring 31% — a 24% lead.

A New York Post report on Wednesday noted the setback as previous polls from last month by Emerson College and Siena College showed Hochul in front by 16 and 14 points, respectively. There is nothing upbeat from any of these numbers.

So while Langworthy barely beat a flawed candidate for his party’s nomination, the office of governor continues to hang in the balance. With all the baggage from the former Andrew Cuomo administration that Hochul was connected to, this was supposed to be an opportunistic year.

“A fundamental principal that should be adopted by all is that public service is about serving the public,” Zeldin said recently. ” For Kathy Hochul, it seems like public service is about being served by the public. She thinks we want to be ruled by an emperor governor. We don’t. People want to be control of their government again.”

Zeldin’s desperation was evident again on Thursday as he called for at least two gubernatorial debates in the New York City media market as well as three others in Buffalo, Syracuse and Albany. Hochul has yet to reply.

With 11 weeks until the November vote, Zeldin’s criticism of Hochul — some of it justified — is overshadowed by Langworthy’s race and his recent win. His shift to candidate from party boss is something state Republicans will have to address shortly after election season.

For all the corruption the Republicans keep heaping on Hochul, there’s a larger, ethical issue about this play by Langworthy. Today, he’s the favorite in the heavily red District 23 to win in November against Democrat Max Della Pia.

But the big prize was supposed to be state governor. If Zeldin loses, blame in the party has to rise to the top.