With four candidates and after three rounds of voting on Saturday, veteran GOP fundraiser and lobbyist John Watson edged out the more “grassroots” aligned Alex Johnson to be elected as the state’s Republican Party chairman. Watson pulled out the victory by the narrow margin of 741 to 679.
South Georgia-based and District 12 Chair Mike Welsh was eliminated after the first round. The second round of voting was tight as Johnson with 498 votes, Michael McNeely with 449, and Watson at 547 roughly split different wings of the party. Johnson and Watson moved on to the decisive third round and it seemed that a majority of McNeely supporters went to Watson amid a rapidly thinning number of voters as the convention dragged on late in the day.
All four of the candidates for the party’s top spot campaigned on a serious need for redirection for the party but Watson’s win is undoubtedly a sigh of relief for some in the party compared to the would-be firebrand Johnson.
There was also some controversy surrounding the first and then later round voting. An issue with delegate strength (meaning the number of delegates present) caused some confusion during the vote counting in the first round. There were a number of extra votes that seemed to mismatch the delegate strength but this was because some previous alternate delegates from Fulton County that were moved up had not been counted originally. Reconciling this took some time and the vote counting dragged on for over an hour.
The second and third rounds were much quicker and some delegates were upset they were not given a proper awareness for voting. Many delegates appeared to be taking the opportunity of the counting time to take a break and use the bathroom and ultimately missed a second or third round vote. After they realized what had happened and it was too late to make a difference, they complained to the chair, State Rep. Fleming, who argued that others on the floor were upset that it was taking too long.
The grumbling on social media and elsewhere following the vote is another symptom of the divide between the vaunted “establishment” and the “grassroots” wings of the party. Perhaps this fight has been going on since the invention of politics but with social media and the internet in general, the ability for the grassroots to organize independent of the establishment seems to have brought the fight more to the forefront. In addition to the financial challenges for the party, controversy out of Washington, Watson will have to work to address the establishment versus grassroots fight as well.
Besides the chairman race, plenty of other excitement came out of the convention. Carolyn Fisher, a long-time GOP volunteer and activist from Forsyth County, was elected first vice-chair. One of her opponents, Vivian Childs, is another long-time activist and from southern Georgia. Childs, like McNeely, is African-American in a party seen by many as not in touch with African-American issues (or worse). Her and McNeely’s loss is seen by some as a missed opportunity to make a leap in reaching out to minority communities.
A suite of candidates for higher officer next year also spoke on Saturday. Michael Williams, a prominent Trump supporter and state Senator, made the claim that he was promised a chairmanship – appropriations no less, a coveted spot. Senator Jeff Mullis (R- 53 Chickamuga) remarked he must have heard that in a dream.
It looks like the 2018 governor race could be a doozy.
