BUFFALO, N.Y. — For the Erie County Green Party, it's “crisis averted.” The party was in the middle of exploring its options to get a candidate, it says was a Republican plant, off its congressional line in New York's 27th District when it learned that candidate simply dropped out of the race.

"Thankfully the past few days Twitter has exploded about it, multiple news stories and they were under pressure because, you know, it's so obvious that it was an underhanded, awful, undemocratic thing to do. So the public pressure was on them and they backed down," Chairman Eric Jones said.

The candidate, again, is Mike Zak, a political unknown whose petitions were circulated by known GOP operatives. Right before the deadline Monday, he officially filed paperwork with the board of elections declining the nomination.

"Obviously when reporters are knocking at his door and calling him, he probably was like, ‘hey, this isn't what I signed up for,’" Jones said.

Incumbent Republican Chris Collins' campaign said they knew nothing of Zak's candidacy, but Democratic challenger Nate McMurray saw it as a clear effort to siphon votes away from him.

"The people: 1, Collins: 0. I mean, we pushed back and we said, not just me but everybody in the community pushed back and said, ‘this type of voter manipulation is wrong,’" he said.

Meanwhile, there was more backlash Tuesday over outside efforts, one source said were connected to the governor's office, to potentially replace McMurray on the congressional ballot with Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul. Embattled former Empire State Development Official Sam Hoyt, who has been accused of sexual harassment, was reportedly one of the people who reached out to McMurray.

"I can say I talked to Sam, but I don't really want to get into it," McMurray said. "I think I want to put that whole episode behind me and move forward. We're staying in this campaign. We're excited about this campaign."

Hoyt told The Buffalo News the conversation had nothing to do with Hochul and did not say it was at the behest of governor. However, Republican gubernatorial candidate Marc Molinaro slammed Cuomo for allegedly enlisting Hoyt to help "dump" his "loyal running mate" Hochul. McMurray said the Republican shouldn't be making statements when he doesn't know the facts.