Orchard Park, N.Y. (WBEN) - In what started out as a party-like atmosphere for Carl Paladino supporters at The Wings Meeting Place in Orchard Park on Tuesday ended with a whimper, as Nick Langworthy ended up declaring victory in the race for the Republican nomination for New York's 23rd Congressional District in November.
Just shortly before midnight on Tuesday night, Langworthy took to the podium at his headquarters in Clarence, as he declared victory in a race that primarily saw Paladino leading throughout the night, only for Langworthy to take the late lead.
"Tonight, the Southern Tier made me the comeback kid," said Langworthy during his victory speech. "This is an overwhelming victory to the hours and the miles on the road in, what was, a very short campaign. But it was a campaign about ideas and about the brand of leadership that we need for Western New York and the Southern Tier.
"I learned a lot of values growing up in the Southern Tier, but the one was, 'When you confront a bully, you punch him in the face, you take them down a peg and they won't mess with you again. We did that here in this District tonight, and we sent a loud and clear message that people want decent, stable, honest, conservative Republican leadership going forward."
A very short moment after Langworthy's team had originally declared victory at around 11:30 p.m. ET, Vish Burra - a spokesperson for Paladino's campaign team - addressed the remaining crowd in attendance with a brief statement.
"There's been a lot going on, there's a lot of votes still to count, a lot of mail-in ballots," said Burra. "I want to thank you so much for coming out and waiting, Carl wants to thank all of you for coming out showing your support and showing up. We still have a lot of votes to count. I don't think it's going to be tonight that we're gonna have the results, but we're still counting, we're still holding strong and we hope to have an answer for you tomorrow."
While there was original speculation that Paladino had conceded to Langworthy, Burra did not address any talk of concession in his brief appearance at the podium.
In an official statement released by Paladino's team shortly after midnight, Burra said, “We are seeing a number of statistical irregularities in a number of counties that we will be looking in the coming days. We want every single legal vote to count.”
In a tweet released by Paladino, he said there were votes to be counted and that, "It's going to be a long night."
As members of the media waited outside Paladino's headquarters into the early morning hours on Wednesday awaiting comment following Langworthy declaring victory, Paladino's team escorted the 76-year-old to a vehicle waiting in another parking lot in front of the facility, where he was seen in the passenger's seat being quickly driven off into the night.
According to election results as of early Wednesday morning, Langworthy holds a 52.14% advantage over Paladino's 47.86% with 95% of the votes being accounted for in NY23.
If the results hold up and Langworthy is declared the winner, he will square off against Democratic candidate Max Della Pia in the new NY23 in November. Della Pia lost to Joe Sempolinski in the special election in the old NY23 that was occupied by Tom Reed.
As guests made their arrival to The Wings Meeting Place on Tuesday evening, it was a positive atmosphere as if folks in attendance were confident in a Paladino victory for NY23. Music was playing in the background, while people congregated and enjoyed a couple of beverages as the results started to come in after 9 p.m. ET.
With early results dictating a Paladino advantage around 60%-to-40%, many people tracked the ballots coming in while enjoying themselves and rooting for the results to go their way.
Over the next couple of hours, the gap between Langworthy and Paladino closed with the votes eventually swinging in favor of Langworthy just before 11:15 p.m. ET.
By 11:30 p.m. ET, Langworthy was declaring victory over Paladino in the Republican nomination race for NY23.
There has been no announcement made yet as to when Paladino will speak on Wednesday following Tuesday night's election results.
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