This should be a week of soul-searching for Chautauqua County Republicans – particularly those in the cities – after Democrats made gains in Jamestown and the Dunkirk area on the Chautauqua County Legislature and the Jamestown City Council.

Surely national politics and their effect on the cities played a part in Tuesday’s local elections. What happened here happened elsewhere too, with Democrats either retaking positions they haven’t held in years or making large enough gains to prompt hand-wringing among Republicans who have come to take electoral wins for granted. There is some anger and some unease over the way national politics are manifesting themselves locally, particularly the way the government shutdown is affecting SNAP benefits. Democrat Tom Carle ran a closer election than previous Democratic Party challengers to County Executive PJ Wendel, and one reason for that may just be Carle’s late pre-election push to help those struggling with the delay in SNAP and HEAP benefits caused by the government shutdown. His response was particularly noteworthy given the local Republican response of pushing those on assistance to already overburdened food banks who were already struggling.

But it would be foolhardy to pin Tuesday’s Democratic Party gains on national politics. Republicans did this to themselves by staying in their silos rather than working together. When the county was creating its fly car system years ago, former Mayor Sam Teresi pushed to have the fly cars operate in Jamestown to lessen the burden on city firefighters who respond to EMS calls. The push was rejected. Now, Republican mayor Kim Ecklund is saddled with an ambulance program that doesn’t bring in as much money as it was projected to and that is staffed by firefighters whose grant funding runs out at the end of 2026. The same thing happened – though the agencies themselves played a role – with years of discussions to merge the city police department with the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office. Those talks fell apart in part because there was no support from county lawmakers. The city took a big swing and struck out.

Then, this year, County Republicans had an opportunity to help improve Jamestown’s revenues by sharing more of the county’s sales tax with the cities. They chose not to do so. We have a feeling some Republicans paid the price for two years of city tax increases that the county could have helped to mitigate.

But it goes further. Mayor Kim Ecklund had to go so far as to declare a state of emergency last year when the city’s homeless problem reached unprecedented levels locally. She has taken city residents’ slings and arrows because she took action even though the county is responsible for human services spending. County Republicans were able to largely stay in the background while their Republican counterpart in Jamestown took public criticism when she dealt with the issue. .

With friends like these, who needs enemies? Republicans who represent Jamestown residents in the legislature represented the county Republican Party’s wishes rather than advocating for policies that would have helped their constituents. They paid the price for those choices Tuesday.

It’s time for city and county Republicans to get on the same page, or Tuesday’s election won’t be the last time the party finds itself soul-searching on the Wednesday after a local election.