FINALLY figuring out that Mike Whatley is a DUD?
I caught a report by Fox News’s Chad Pergram over the holiday highlighting North Carolina as having one of the two currently GOP-held US Senate seats most likely to flip to the Democrats. Now, here comes Newsweek with the same kind of thing. Both reports relied heavily on “Washington sources.”
[If that comes true, the GOP Senate majority would fall from 53-47 to 51-49. JD Vance would basically have to live on Capitol Hill for the last two years of this term. Under the current majority, it’s been nearly impossible to get anything conservative passed. There is a handful of GOP senators who will run over to the Democrats in a heartbeat. ]
That kind of talk is really interesting. Since July, we’ve been force-fed the spin that Mike Whatley is “the best equipped and most qualified to beat Roy Cooper.” Never mind that there is not one single piece of publicly-available polling to support that assessment. The most recent piece of polling – sponsored by a major in-state GOPe butt-kisser — found Whatley losing to Cooper just as badly as his GOP primary opponent Don Brown. Polls – since July – have found Whatley trailing Cooper anywhere from six to nine percentage points.
Trump’s choice. Yep. We’ve been bludgeoned about our heads and shoulders with that claim. If you actually follow the national political news closely, you’ll find that President Trump approached anywhere from three to five other people before settling on Mike Whatley. Yeah, Trump had so much faith in Whatley that he named him RNC chairman and tapped his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair to babysit him.
In his stumping for Whatley, Trump hailed the fact that he won North Carolina three times. Whatley was first elected state party chairman in 2019. So, he was not in a position to impact the 2016 race. Donald Trump is not a hard-sell in North Carolina. Whatley and his pals could have run off to Antarctica for a year – closing up NCGOP HQ while they were gone — and Trump still would have won the state.
Trump also hailed Whatley’s “leadership” in ballot security. Whatley’s last run for reelection – against Raleigh’s John Kane — was so riddled with irregularities. A sketchy voting app – which apparently accepted votes from outside the meeting room AND outside the state — was used for the first time. The situation screamed for an investigation, but Whatley and his team swept it all under a rug and moved on.
Trump eagerly sought the replacement of Thom Tillis. Yet, he comes along and endorses Tillis’s protégè and preferred successor. (Whatley kicked off the press conference announcing his final run for state party chairman with a keynote speech by Tillis.)
We’ve seen this scenario before — in the 2024 governor’s race. Consultants and other party apparatchiks introduced us to the Pretend-there-is-no-Primary game. With the help of a compliant news media, the conspirators were allowed to whisk Mark Robinson through the primary season unscathed and into the general election — where the media turned on Robinson and joined the Democrats in definestrating the GOP nominee. An actual primary where the issues got discussed and the candidates got vetted would have helped avoid that conclusion. But the all-knowing Raleigh political class, um, *knew better.*
One — I hope – unintended consequence of this aggressive pro-Whatley campaign is the tamping down of conservative turnout in North Carolina in 2026. Whatley – like Tillis — has done his best to irritate (read: *piss off*) party conservatives. Trump is not on the 2026 ballot. If Whatley gets the nomination, he’ll lead the ticket. There are a lot of folks out there who would seriously consider sitting home rather than showing up at the polls for Mike Whatley. There are a lot of important judicial, legislative and congressional races that are also on the ballot. A lot of those folks are counting on strong conservative turnout in March and November.
How do you ensure that with a Senate nominee who has — with his pal Thom — been giving conservatives the finger for years? (Remember, Tillis himself never got to 50 percent. And Roy Cooper has never lost an election.)
I’m not saying any of the rest of the GOP primary field could do a better job against Cooper. But an actual primary — where we could learn about these folks and feel them out — would have helped. At least, to make sure we are putting our strongest combatant forward.
Lest we forget… in 2019, months before Whatley “won” the GOP chair race for the first time, the GOP elite, was in trouble. Disgraced Party Chairman, Robin Hayes’ endorsed candidate was getting trounced by grassroots genius, Jim Womack and Tillis was panicking.
Already hated by the party base, ol’ Thom knew better than to show his face at any NC events, unless they were $1,000-a-plate dinners. Instead, the coward sent his wife all over the state, speaking to Republican Women’s Federation audiences. Susan Tillis told the women that Whatley, an unknown DC lobbyist with tenuous NC roots, was their new Chosen One.
Then, Saturday morning at the NCGOP State Convention, a few buses showed up with more than 100 Young Republicans standing in line to be credentialed by the Tillis Cartel.
But the best was yet to come: When the doors were locked and the delegates all seated, the Cartel surprised the room by presenting electronic “voting” devices on lanyards to each delegate. Instead of using paper ballots, these were foist upon the room. In the name of “efficiency.”
Before anybody could debate NOT using the devices, the vote was on and with no way to audit the results, the Cartel tallied the votes and declared Womack had won the popular vote, but Whatley had won the weighted vote.
The next 90 minutes involved numerous county Chairs challenging their delegation’s results. Some complained that their posted number of delegates was less than the number physically present. In other counties, the opposite problem arose. They got MORE votes than delegates! In the end, the GOPe ignored the undercount complaints and only adjusted those counties with overvotes.
In 2021, Covid rules meant that only party insiders would bother attending that convention, but they still used electronic voting and Whatley “won” again!
By 2023, even the donor class was onto Whatley, and John Kane Jr was deployed to unseat Whatley. You’ve reported well on that disaster, so no need to repeat it here.
The bottom line is that Whatley NEVER won an election without paperless electronic balloting that was impossible to audit Anna SO many delegates have been alienated by such heavy handed arrogance, that you’re absolutely right when you say Whatley’s name at the top of the ticket will depress Republican turnout all the way down the ballot.
I attended all those crooked conventions. I will never support Whatley.
When Whatley, the so-called “champion of election integrity,” was re-elected as NCGOP Chair in 2023 in that sham election described in the article, I left the Republican Party and registered as Unaffiliated. I’m guessing there were many others who did as well. The man is Thom Tillis 2.0 and I WILL NOT vote for him! Don Brown will represent us faithfully and honorably in the US Senate, and deserves the support of every fair-minded conservative/Republican in North Carolina!
Don Brown is the only choice for any honorable North Carolina conservative.
The NCGOP is in some serious trouble. The only guy with heavy lifting fund-raising capability truly is a bore. In the video on his campaign web site (which headlines with a “Donate”), he looks positively robotic as he concludes his speech by saying, “Make America great again.” Almost fell asleep myself. Other than a little pablum in the video, the web site also fails to mention a single point on the issues — other than, yes, we’re going to make America strong and prosperous. Big whoop. Any Democrat will say the same thing. No attacks on Cooper. Nothing said about the woke epidemic . . . zzzzzzzzzzz.
I have attended the GOP state conventions as a voting delegate since 2018. They are highly choreographed events. There is little to no presentations or discussions other than what the leadership establishment wants. Anything that might disrupt the status quo is immediately shutdown by claims of missteps in parliamentary procedures or ruled out of order. Any resolutions to be presented have to be cleared by the resolution committee and thousands of hard copies have to be available on the floor.
Then there was the internet voting for officers that took 3+ hours to determine that Whatley won. Who did not see this for what it was? One does not even have to attend the convention to have their votes counted.
Then if things get rowdy, there is always someone that calls for adjournment just before the attendees can get to the one reason they attended. This motion always receives a second, an immediate vote is called for, and the meeting is over. Nothing to see here. Move along. The bar is open and the anointed keynote speaker is ready to tell you he will save the party, state, and nation.
One can attend in person at reasonable expense if you just attend the business meeting on Saturday. If you desire to attend all the luncheons and dinners on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, be prepared to shell out over $500.00 in convention fees. Then add on 2-3 nights in a hotel and you’re into serious money to attend an event where you are not welcome.
If you want to meet the candidates on Thursday and Friday there is no cost. Just visit the exhibit hall. They are there for 3-4 hours each day and some have meet and greets after the $100.00 dinners on Thursday and Friday evenings in “hospitality suites”. You might even run into Dallas Woodhouse!
Sounds and reads like many county conventions and exec cmtee meetings as well.
Right. That’s the model for my county now. The NC GOP sucks top to bottom.
A view from the Grassroots- The NCGOP’s state leadership has been broken and/or corrupt since 2016. Our messaging sucks, our failed recruiting leaves us with a weak statewide bench, and our competitiveness in statewide races is in rapid decline. The establishment wing of the party has shut down communications between and among grassroots party activists. The state convention has turned into a scripted exercise in futility. And the legislature opened our party primaries, permanently, in the interest of sustaining status quo control of the party’s cohort of elected moderates (a violation of U.S. Supreme Court case law). By contrast, a 20-something leader in the NCDP is singlehandedly outperforming the entire cadre of NCGOP officials on Hillsborough Street- in fundraising, in recruiting, and in uniting her base of supporters. When will the NCGOP learn? How much political pain do we have to endure before our leaders change their pattern of behavior? We’ve already lost our House supermajority and most major Council of State offices despite creative redistricting and increasing numbers of registered Republicans across the state. If the NCGOP was a corporation it would be a candidate for hostile takeover or receivership.
One of the most destructive things that has occurred in the party is the move from our history as a party that operated from the bottom up to one that, like the Democrats historically did, operates from the top down. That discourages activists from getting involved or staying involved. This began back in the Cobey era and has just gotten worse in more recent years.
I remember when party chairmen brought their campaign plans to the state ExCom for discussion and approval, usually verbally, but Bob Bradshaw as chairman actually distributed to the ExCom a detailed written campaign plan for approval. The ExCom is the governing body of the party but state chairman don’t even bother now to even report what they plan to do, much less seek approval. The last state ExCom meeting was a good example. Instead of laying out campaign plans and seeking approval, the chairman’s “report” was merely a pep talk that offered no clue about what sort of campaign effort he might propose. The ExCom is left in the dark. There was not even a place on the agenda for new business for anyone on the committee to bring an issue before.
Then there are the party’s lower offices. I served in one of those offices myself for three terms and another office for half a term. In those days, officers were actually elected as the PoO calls for. No one was anointed by the state chairman. They had to run for it, and make their case for election to their fellow ExCom members. The state chairman did not try to put his thumb on the scales. That meant those party officers were loyal to the party as a whole, not personally to the state chairman.
The ExCom meeting after the state convention had an agenda that did not call for “election” of officers but on the contrary for “SELECTION” of officers. The chairman offered a slate and then sought approval. There was not even an opportunity to nominate anyone else. This Soviet style of “election” is an insult to party activists on the ExCom, but unfortunately we have seen it too often since Bill Cobey first did it. At least a ffew chairmen have at least opened the floor for other nominations, but it is best to go back to having a real election where the state chairman does not try to control these offices. The result of this process is that on the Central Committee, the chairman now has a block of votes that he has installed and will be loyal to him personally. In the days when we were a “bottom up” party, these officers were the eyes and ears of the ExCom on the Central Committee. Now the ExCom no longer has a voice on the Central Committee. That has been usurped by the state chairman. The present state chairman did not start this awful policy, but he has continued it.
Our party needs more than just a change in leadership. It badly needs structural reform to get back to a party that operates from the bottom up.
As a lifelong registered Republican who believes in the tenets of the party’s platform, I’ve always voted for every R up and down the ballot in the general elections. Always.
However.
I think many of us have learned over the past few decades some elected officials actually govern as Republicans while most elected Republicans are self-interested counterfeits who’ve sold themselves to the highest bidder. We’ve also learned once those counterfeits get into office, it’s almost impossible to replace them in the next Primary.
Michael Whatley is the King of Counterfeit Republicans. Unfortunately, President Trump still struggles with discernment.
Although I’ll never vote for a Democrat and I’ll never “just stay home”, I will also NOT vote for, support, campaign for a counterfeit Republican: The option is voting 3rd party candidate or write-in. I’d rather have a Dem in the minority for 6 years than a feckless sell-out like Tillis and Thune and McConnell (the list goes on) in the majority for 24+ years.
We’re told: “Hold yer nose and vote R – vote for the lesser of two evils.”
Evil in the minority for 6 years or Evil for 24+? I’d prefer just 6 years of evil, powerlessly yapping like an irritating chihuahua.
Unfortunately, that’s the scenario most of the time. It’s getting like that locally, too.