ALBANY — It’s a three-way primary for the GOP nomination to challenge US Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand this fall.
Rep. Bob Turner of Queens, who jumped into the GOP sweepstakes just three days ago, picked up enough support at yesterday’s state Republican convention in Rochester to force a primary against Manhattan lawyer Wendy Long and Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos.
Turner barely topped the 25 percent threshold in the weighted vote of state GOP committee members to qualify for the June 26 primary ballot.
Long — who appears to have the support of the state Conservative Party and got a boost yesterday from a convention visit by conservative talk-show personality Laura Ingraham — got 47 percent. Maragos got 27 percent.
The vote came after former Gov. George Pataki roused the party faithful with an appeal for unity and an attack aimed more at President Obama than Gillibrand, whom insiders believe the former governor tacitly backed when she took an upstate House seat away from Republican John Sweeney in 2006 after a falling out between Sweeney and Pataki.
