Putnam GOP Backs Murphy for Senate Seat
State Senate hopeful Terrene Murphy received another vote of confidence last week when the Putnam County Republican Party formally endorsed the Yorktown councilman for the 40th district seat left open next election by current office holder Greg Ball.
Murphy stated in a press release he’s “grateful” that the Putnam GOP committee tapped him over fellow Republican Bob Castelli, who also announced he’s running for the seat after Ball said he would not seek any public office this fall. Democrat Justin Wagner is running on the other side of the ticket.
“It’s not something they approach lightly,” Murphy said in the release. “I had to earn their endorsement, and along with other accomplishments, I did that by cutting taxes twice, creating jobs by bringing a quarter billion dollars in economic development to Yorktown, and by allocating the necessary funds to revive our local narcotics unit to combat the Hudson Valley’s heroin epidemic.”
One of the Putnam GOP committee members, Tony Scannapieco said the conclusion to choose Murphy over Castelli was a “difficult decision for all of us.” But Scannapieco noted that because the Westchester County Republican Committee already endorsed Murphy the previous week, the Committee felt it was necessary to also nominated him.
“We liked both candidates and just felt that if we were to endorse Bob Castelli, it would just blow up the whole thing,” Scannapieco said. “Basically Greg Ball screwed the whole thing up because Greg Ball waiting last minute and everything we had no time. We like Bob a lot. It’s unfortunate but we went with what we felt was the right thing to do at the time.”
Ball was actually nominated when the committee held their convention a couple months ago and accepted it, even though he had not announced his political intentions at that point.
When reached, Castelli expressed his disappointment on not getting the nod from the Putnam GOP, but said it was understandable considering Murphy received the nomination from the Westchester Republican Party.
He added, the rush to make decisions on which candidate to nominate is all the result of Ball making an 11th hour decision on whether he was running for reelection. As a result, Castelli said it has thrown “all the parties in all three counties in flux.”
But he has vowed to keep all his choices open and states he’s still running and interested in forcing a primary election in September. He added he’d make a final determination over the next week.
“I’m keeping all of my options alive to include the idea of a primary against Terrence Murphy,” Castelli said.
The Dutchess County Republican Committee has yet to choose a candidate to nominate.
