#ncpol: Grandpa’s election night was rough. How did Jim Womack do?
In the last battle for NCGOP chairman, we were bombarded with commentary about how Jim Womack can’t beat the Democrats and can’t raise money. This year, we found that Robin Hayes — the victor in the chairman’s race — has extreme difficulty beating Democrats and has to lean on high-priced “fundraising consultants” to raise money.
We all know the statewide results from Tuesday. Oh-fer-four on some very winnable statewide judicial races. The loss of super-majorities in BOTH chambers of The General Assembly.
Jim Womack, Hayes’s reelection opponent, went back to work as chairman of the Lee County GOP. How’d he do on Tuesday?
Lee Republicans swept all three county commissioner races on the ballot. Two of the victories involved upsets of Democrat incumbents. One victory was a defense of what had been the ONLY GOP seat on the board, (One of those victories involved a 24-year-old GOP newcomer who knocked off a veteran Democrat incumbent 50 years her senior who was 
closely tied to former Lt. Gov Dennis Wicker and other local political establishment figures.)
The Lee GOP took TWO of the three county school board seats that were on the ballot. The party also saw victories at the Congressional, state House and state Senate levels. While the NCGOP went 0-4 in statewide races, the GOP judicial candidates split the races evenly 2-2 with the Democrats in Lee County.
The GOP took two of three district court seats on the ballot. And four of the six amendments passed — mirroring statewide results.
I talked with one longtime observer of Lee County politics about Tuesday night:
“Jim Womack is a machine. He’s been in high-gear about this election for months. He recruited some great candidates. He locked down all the precincts with volunteers. You had to walk through a gauntlet of about a dozen Republican workers — people from your church, your neighbors – just to get in your polling place. Lee County Republicans ended up winning seats many thought before the election they had a 1000-1 shot of taking.”
Hats off to the Pasquotank GOP for assisting our candidates in electing the first Republican sheriff in over 100 years and two new Republican County commissioners to a seven member board. Two incumbent Democrats were unseated and we now have 3 members of a 7 member board. We found the door to door, feet on the ground to be effective. I received a phone call on Monday from a new Pasquotank County resident. So new she still had to vote in Indiana. But that didn’t keep the NCGOP from sending her a mailer that said if she didn’t vote they would tell her neighbors. What a wonderful welcome from the GOP. She has taped the mailer back together and has it ready for me to pick and embarrass the NCGOP.
Jim Womack’s results are indeed impressive. We obviously need a change and housecleaning at GOP Headquarters. Our legislative leadership needs to re-evaluate how it conducts business and communicates its message. There are no doubt potentially good leaders out there. Womack may be the one. Time will tell, but there is no doubt change is badly needed. One more point: some of our good candidates and many grassroots conservative activists have been totally betrayed by RINO sycophants who continue to obfuscate and obstruct what we are trying to accomplish as a party. We know who they are and we should permanently give them the boot.
Clearly the Mecklenburg county could take some lessons from Lee county
Is Womack interested in running again?
Given that the NCGOP staff purposefully obstructed him last time around from reaching out to the various county delegates, while helpfully facilitating Hayes to reach to each and every delegate, I doubt it, Clearly the supposedly neutral NCGOP staff has no interest in letting the county delegations solely determine the election of state officers.
Hayes is a good man and has served the NCGOP with distinction his entire life. But it is time to retire. Time to hand the reigns over to new younger leaders who can infuse the Party with the energy needed for the future.
I would not go that far. As chairman, Hayes has always been a figurehead who has allowed someone else to wield the real power in the party. In his first term it was vice chairman Wayne King. In his current incarnation, it has been blunderboy Dallas Woodhouse.
It is time for a real chairman and for Hayes to be put out to pasture.
I do take exception to the title of your article. Grandpa did NOT have a rough night, because he doesn’t give a hoot about NC and NCGOP. He is still happy as a clam. If he did care, money would have flowed to where Trump is placing his priorities: To the Judiciary. Jackson, Heath, Griffins, etc all losing is on the watch of Hayes and Woodhouse. Hayes has to go. My observation of who voted for him instead of Womack last time is that they are either 1. In the $ pocket of Hayes/Woodhouse 2. Don’t really care about what happens in NC 3. Are lazy lemmings who didn’t pay attention and voted for whoever their club Chair or District Chair told them to. Womack would have worked his behind off for us, and would have fired Woodhouse. Hopefully Jim will run again in 2019. We desperately need him. In the meantime, don’t give a penny to NCGOP, they just waste it. (didn’t you just love their “Communications” emails, which rehashed everything we already knew from reading and cable??)
The central and executive committees need leaders (outside of the true conservative leaders) to stop thinking about their clique and start calling out the weak leadership at HQ. They’ll kick and scream about the 2020 Convention, but big deal-it won’t matter if we keep losing! Too many only care about themselves and won’t pony up to a purge.
Robin will stack the deck at the Convention in June and people who could care less about the party will pull the lever for Robin because he’s Robin. If there’s not a serious challenger to Hayes I’ll sit at the house again this year.
I never saw one mailed about NC Promise. This program should have been BLASTED across all races that the GOP made college affordable. I’m sick of hearing about people running on it now because it’s already here!
Typically LT Dan stays out of things, but I hate to say it the NCGOP could sink him in 2020. All you need to do is look at the lazy, idiotic “rinse and repeat” mailers and spending this cycle.