Politics

Republican chair declares North Carolina key to Trump re-election

Republican Executive Committee member and Breakfast Club Chair Emmett Casciato speaks during a Republican breakfast Saturday.

By Bill Moss, Published: July 27, 2019

Declaring North Carolina a key battleground state for President Trump’s re-election, new state Republican Party Chair Michael Whatley exhorted the party faithful to be ready to volunteer on the phones and on the ground in 2020.

“I’m excited because we have such an opportunity in this cycle, 2020,” said Whatley, who won the top party job last month after the resignation of Chairman Robin Hayes amid a bribery scandal. “The first campaign I ever volunteered on, 1984, was for Jesse Helms when he was running against Jim Hunt. I was a sophomore in high school at Watauga High School in Boone. I’ve been doing this for 35 years and I am really really excited about the opportunities we have.”
He ticked off the state Republican Party goals: winning two congressional seats in special elections on Sept. 10, boosting Republican numbers back to super-majorities in the state House and Senate, winning seats on the state appeals court and Supreme Court, strengthening a Republican hold on the Council of State — targeting elections for lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state and commissioner of labor — defending Sen. Thom Tillis’s seat in what he predicted would be “the most expensive Senate race in the country,” and defeating Gov. Roy Cooper. Most of all, he said, “We have the opportunity to give president Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence four more years.” Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina are keys to Trump's re-election, he said.
Republican Party Chair Larry Chapman speaks to party members in Pisgah Forest. To win from top to bottom, the party will use fundraising, thousands of ground troops and computer-driven get-out-the-vote and messaging strategies.
“I got a call yesterday saying they need 170,000 doors knocked in the Ninth District in the next seven weeks,” he told the audience of 125 people who packed the Hawg Wild BBQ at the gateway to the Pisgah National Forest. “We know that all across North Carolina, not just in the Ninth, we’re going to be able to get that done.
“We are clearing out space (at party headquarters), we’re looking at construction, we’re going to build a TV studio and we’re going to be able to film commercials for our Republican candidates, pair that up with the data we’re going to be able to get, and allow them to go out into the field and talk to their constituents on a very regular basis.”

The state and RNC will invest in voter registration drives, mount aggressive campaigns during the early voting period that produces half the votes cast, recruit and train thousands of volunteers and raise money with, among other things, a new small-donation online portal developed by the Trump campaign and the RNC.
Whatley praised Aubrey Woodard, the chair of the party’s 11th Congressional District Committee, for providing “a steady hand … under extremely difficult times” when the party chair resigned and thanked newly elected Vice Chair Miriam Chu, of Moore County, for “rolling up her sleeves” and helping to lead what he has called the state GOP’s “reset.”