A coalition of non-New York City business organizations that includes the Buffalo Niagara Partnership is taking aim at State Senate Democrats and plans to raise enough money to fuel its effort.

The result could be a powerful new business force with the potential to spend millions of dollars to restore some balance of upstate power in the Senate, according to Partnership President Andrew J. Rudnick. The way to do that, he said, is by helping Republican candidates.

“It’s not really a Democrat or Republican thing; it’s an upstate-downstate thing,” Rudnick said. “Especially with redistricting coming, we think upstate is most vulnerable.”

Rudnick said the realities of one-party rule in Albany force the Partnership and other groups across upstate and the metropolitan suburbs to consider Republican candidates.

“The object is to turn enough of those contested races back to Republicans,” he said. “That’s because of where the majority party is at this moment and what they’ve done.”

He pointed to the last state budget and projections of continuing deficits as evidence that the Legislature — under complete Democratic rule for the first time since the 1930s — is ignoring upstate’s economic plight.

“If everyone is Democrat and downstate, we’re now screwed more than we have been,” he said. “We’re all about trying to change that.”

As a result, the Partnership hopes to raise $100,000 at a $250-per-head fundraising event in the Burchfield Penney Art Center on March 25.

“From the business community point of view, we’ll have to put in hundreds of thousands of dollars per targeted race,” Rudnick said. “We’re pretty convinced we can do it.”

The infusion of that kind of money could make the business consortium a power on par with Florida billionaire B. Thomas Golisano, who pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into local legislative races in 2008. Golisano has hinted he plans to focus on several races again in 2010 and may duplicate his last effort — which totaled $4.4 million.

He said he did not know if Golisano would support the effort, but noted the Buffalo Sabres owner joined with Rochester and Buffalo business officials at HSBC Arena in June 2009 to endorse their efforts to reduce taxes and roll back business regulation through their Unshackle Upstate group.

Golisano made his appearance just after he was instrumental in orchestrating the coup that temporarily stripped Democrats of their control of the State Senate — just months after he supported several Democratic Senate candidates.

“We figure 2010 is go or no-go to try and turn around what has happened in this state,” Rudnick said, noting that even downstate business groups from outside New York City are joining the effort.

He acknowledged that the race for the seat now held by Lake View Democrat William T. Stachowski will prove the most competitive in Western New York but also said his group has not yet taken a position on whom it will support.

The Partnership will be joined in the campaign by the Long Island Association, the Westchester County Business Association, the Mid-Hudson Partnership for Progress, the Business Council of New York State and the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

State Sen. Antoine M. Thompson, D-Buffalo, who coordinates the campaign efforts of Western New York Senate Democrats, did not return a call seeking comment.