News 12's Tara Rosenblum sat down with Ed Cox for his first on-camera interview since his decision to pursue the Republican party's top job in New York. 

Cox confirmed he was able shore up enough support from Republican leaders across the state this past weekend to become the next state GOP chairman.

It's a role he held for a decade until 2019.

Since then, the Suffolk County Republican says he has stayed extremely active in party politics, not only running the Super PACs for Lee Zeldin's campaign for governor, but also spearheading the legal challenge that resulted in the state's congressional maps getting tossed out last year.

Cox, who is former President Richard Nixon's son-in-law, says he's running for chair again because he is concerned with the direction New York has taken under one-party Democratic rule.

"When 500,000 New York citizens leave New York for other places, something is going wrong. When we are the first to go into an economic downturn and the last to leave the empire something is wrong in New York state," he says.

A formal vote of state committee leaders will take place on Monday in Albany.

News 12 reached out to the Democratic state chairman for his reaction to Cox's candidacy, but has not heard back yet.