“This club has been formed to unite what’s left of the Republican Party [in Yonkers] and to make it stronger  — quite frankly to bring it out of the malaise it’s been in over the past many years” — said Debbie Kozak, self-described housewife, work-from-everywhere mom and a GOP political campaigner for most of last year.

Kozak, who lost her 2023 campaign for county legislator – has named the newly re-formed organization, of which she is acting president, The John P. O’Leary Northwest Yonkers Republican Club, after the last (1976-85) county legislator to serve from her area.

On Monday she conducted the first meeting of the first-ever Yonkers Republican club from that area.

Until then the only remaining GOP ‘club’ in the city — where there once were several — was the NorthEAST Yonkers Republican Club, headed by Bob Moffitt, who recently also became chairman of the (official) City of Yonkers Republican Committee.

O’Leary, who left Yonkers and moved up-county years ago but is still active, returned to Yonkers last fall to attend one of Kozak’s rallies and ended up offering her his endorsement.

Moffitt, unable to attend this week’s JPONWYRC inaugural meeting while recovering from COVID, sent a written statement with his best wishes and a pep talk for the assembled group:

* ‘Clubs such as ours send messages to the Democrats that we are alive and still kicking,’ he wrote.

* ‘Through this club you will be meeting 2024 candidates and elected officials and get a [better] idea of what the one-party rule of government is doing to us.

* ‘I keep hearing Democrats demonizing Republicans with the phrase, “MAGA Republican.” I can’t help but wonder why is wanting to Make America Great Again so bad?

* ‘Is America Great when our borders are overrun with millions of asylum seekers? Is America Great when countries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are no longer worried about us?

* ‘Is America Great when when we are no longer energy-independent? Or when our legal system has been turned into a political weapon?

* ‘I think we should wear the title – MAGA – with pride, because ALL would benefit from it.

To which Kozak added, “Republicans from Yonkers haven’t been winning, partly because we haven’t been working hard enough toward becoming winners. With your help,” she said, “we can and we will change that.

“Republican registrations are and have been lackluster,” she told the group of nearly three dozen first-time attendees who showed up at her invitation. “Not just lackluster; I’ll go so far as to say stagnant. And we need to change that, asap.

“Think about this,” she said, citing some data from her recent campaign:

* ‘In Westchester County Legislative District 16 (where I was running) there were 3,900 registered Republican voters” going into the election.”

* ‘I won 51 percent of that total, plus 75 percent of the Conservative-Party vote…and many of those here tonight are my voters. Thank you!

* ‘But Democrats had a huge block of 17,500 registered voters going in – which is more than four times as many as we had!

* ‘So there you have it: My opponent won the election by getting a mere 20 percent of a huge number of Democrats, compared with my huge 51 percent of a much smaller number of registrants.

* ‘Simple arithmetic: her 20 percent of a larger number beat my 51 percent of a smaller one.

* ‘So, if we had increased Republican registrations by 1,200 and repeated the election, I probably would have won.

* ‘Or if we had increased our by only half but had the same turnout – we still would have lost.

* ‘Lesson learned: Registrations trump turnout, but Republicans are so far down, we need both.

Concluding her remarks, Kozak quoted the embattled President Nixon, who certainly knew whereof he spoke: “A man isn’t finished when he’s been defeated; a man is finished when he quits.”

“I’m not a quitter,” she said, “and by the enthusiasm shown here tonight, neither are you.”

Kozak said she’s encouraging voters in other Yonkers wards to form and start building their own Republican Clubs, “to wake up our comatose party and by increasing registrations and turnouts, bring us back to our  former strength.”

The John P. O’Leary Northwest Yonkers Republican Club is open to all and meets at 7 p.m. the second Monday of the month in the downstairs meeting room of the Catholic Slovak Club, 49 Lockwood Avenue.