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Three sitting congressmen and the newly chosen Manhattan GOP chairwoman are on a short list of potential Republican challengers to Sen. Charles Schumer next year, The Post has learned.

Two of the congressman, both from upstate, are pro-choice and pro-gay-marriage, making them exceptions in a socially conservative New York party but also making them promising as statewide contenders, said a knowledgeable Republican activist.

The third congressman, Rep. Peter King of Nassau County, is conservative on social issues but is also a high-profile critic of some of the GOPs most prominent national conservative activists, including Sen. Ted Cruz, an announced presidential candidate.

While King, 71, has toyed with the possibility of mounting a presidential campaign himself, hes demonstrated little popularity with the national GOP base and is widely seen as unlikely to do so. I really think King might be interested in going after Schumer, the GOP activist contended.

Adele Malpass, wife of former New York Senate hopeful and Reagan and George H. W. Bush official David Malpass, took over the long-struggling Manhattan, or New York County, GOP Committee in December, and is touted as having a promising future.

Shes also a social liberal with considerable financial resources, but she told The Post that shes not interested in running next year.

No, no, no, under no circumstances, said Malpass, insisting shes concentrating her energies on the difficult task of rebuilding the near-non-existent city GOP.

The two socially liberal congressmen are Chris Gibson, of Kinderhook, who recently announced that hell leave Congress after next year, and Richard Hanna of Utica, who only narrowly won a primary last year against Tea Party-backed Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney.

Gibson, a retired Army colonel and combat veteran with a Ph.D. in government from Cornell, has declared hes interested in running for governor in 2018. But Malpass and other GOP activists would like to see him challenge Schumer.

I think hed be a very strong statewide candidate. Hes very conservative on everything but on social issues, said Malpass.

Link:
Top Republican candidates to challenge Chuck Schumer