Heading into next week’s GOP convention in Manhattan, Bruce Blakeman so far leads the endorsement race, with 22 chairs/counties representing 31.7 percent of the weighted convention vote.

That’s going to become 23 chairs by the end of the day, as I’m told the Jefferson County GOP is poised to sign on with Blakeman, too, boosting his tally to about 32.4 percent.

Blakeman, a former Nassau County legislator and ex-Port Authority Board member, was the first Republican to throw his hat into the ring against Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, announcing his campaign back in January.

He also was the first to claim he had hit the 25 percent mark neccessary to get onto the ballot.

According to the Blakeman campaign’s tally, former Rep. Joe DioGuardi has four counties with 11.6 percent and economist David Malpass has seven counties totaling 6.4 percent.

That leaves a fairly sizable chunk of the weighted vote unaccounted for, but there’s plenty of time for jockeying yet.

UPDATE: State GOP spokesman Alex Carey sent over the following statement in response to my reference to Cox’s effort to get Malpass to switch races and challenge Schumer instead of Gillibrand:

“Most of the candidates for Senator Gillibrand’s seat were approached at various points by certain Republican State Committeemen, other than Chairman Cox, to gauge the candidates’ interest in running against Senator Schumer, only because there was no candidate for that vacancy for some time.”

“Chairman Cox is extremely pleased with David Malpass’ decision to run against Senator Gillibrand, and never interfered, in any way, to coerce him to run instead against Senator Schumer.”

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