GUILDERLAND — The town’s Republican Committee has a new leader after Matthew Nelligan stepped down as chairman last month.

Nelligan said this week he believes Douglas Breakell, whom the committee unanimously elected to replace him, is the right chairman because he is “an aggressive political strategist.”

Breakell works for the New York State Senate as the director of legislative services, and previously worked as the political director for the Senate’s Republican Campaign Committee.

The new chairman grew up in Guilderland; his father was active in the town’s Republican Committee when he was young, and he said he was raised with “Republican principles.”

Breakell said he was honored that Nelligan wanted to “pass the torch” to him.

Nelligan served as chairman for four-and-a-half years, after making an unsuccessful run for the Guilderland Town Board in 2009. He told The Enterprise this week that he was stepping down because he wanted to have more time to spend with his children as they get older and more involved in extracurricular activities.

His goal during his tenure as chairman, he said, had been to rebuild the town’s party, and recruit good candidates for town office.

“We attained some of our basic goals…having an active and vibrant committee and creating a viable alternative to the Democrats at the town level,” said Nelligan. “But, the job is not done until you can consistently win elections.”

Guilderland had been a predominantly Republican town for decades, but, like many suburban towns in Albany County, enrollment has shifted to the Democrats and the town board is now all Democratic.

Democrats have held the majority of town offices for 14 years; currently, there is only one Republican elected official in the town of Guilderland — Steven Oliver is the highway superintendent.

Current town enrollment, according to the board of elections, breaks down this way: 36 percent Democrat, 26 percent Republican, 26 percent unaffiliated, and the rest small party.

Town elections in 2013 were closer than they had been in recent years.

Mark Grimm, a former town board member, lost the race for supervisor, to incumbent Kenneth Runion, by less than 600 votes; Only 227 votes separated Republican Lee Carman and Democratic Chairman Paul Pastore; Democratic incumbent Patricia Slavick received the most votes in the town board race, but just 760 votes separated her from Republican Mark Livingston, who drew in the least amount of votes.

Grimm told The Enterprise this week that Nelligan “deserves a round of applause for reinvigorating the party.”

He said he has not yet decided if he will make another run for supervisor in 2015, but he isn’t ruling it out.

Grimm said Breakell was “very bright and committed to the party.”

Breakell said that his method for building up the party would be a “grassroots effort” involving a lot of door-to-door campaigning.

“We need to get away from the mudslinging,” he said.

The Democrats called the Republican’s 2013 campaign one of the dirtiest, most negative campaigns they’d ever seen.

Breakell said the way to recruit support would be to get out into the community and converse with neighbors.

Right now, though, he said, he is focusing on supporting Republicans at the state level, particularly those running for seats in the Senate, including George Amedore, challenging Democratic incumbent Cecilia Tkaczyk in the 46th District.

After the fall elections, he said, he will begin looking forward to the town races in 2015.

“I don’t have to start from the ground up,” said Breakell.