GOPe abandons the BIG LIE, confesses they are REALLY all-in for Whatley
We caught onto the Republican establishment’s game early-on. Our 2026 Senate race – at least on
the GOP side — will be one big game of Pretend. Pretend there is no primary. Back the empty-suit spiritual little brother of Trump enemy Thom Tillis over an actual MAGA candidate.
Initially, establishment sources at the RNC, NRSC and NCGOP tried to play off their actions as merely something that they’d do for anyone running for US Senate from North Carolina as a Republican. Of course, not many folks bought that.
So, the establishment has finally decided to tell the truth about what they’re really up to:
The Republican National Committee has green-lit early party aid for Michael Whatley as he campaigns for an open, battleground Senate seat in North Carolina — giving the former national party chair access to help that’s rarely granted to nonincumbents who have yet to win their primaries. […]
Wait. We’ve been told what a fundraising whiz Mike Whatley is. Why is DC feeling the need to perpetrate this unusual, unprecedented action NOW?
MORE:
[…] National party rules require the RNC to stay neutral in any primary, unless the filing deadline for the office has passed and the candidate is unopposed. But the rules do contain an exception: The RNC can “contribute money or in-kind aid to any candidate” with the blessing of all three of a state’s RNC members
North Carolina GOP chair Jason Simmons confirmed to NBC News Thursday that he and the party’s state committeeman and committeewoman had agreed to approve the move, known as Rule 11 of the RNC bylaws.
“The RNC has reached out and inquired about Rule 11, and it has been engaged,” Simmons said. […]
Okay, folks. It appears North Carolina Republicans have been sold out by, primarily, three people: (1) Jason Simmons – a carpetbagger brute-forced into the party chairman role by DC, (2) Ke$ha Brassington, and (3) Ed Broyhill. These people – in agreeing to this atrocity — have communicated that North Carolina Republican voters are not smart enough to make decisions for themselves. The corrupt, rotten underbelly of DC and Raleigh MUST do it FOR THEM.
MORE:
[…Simmons]noted that while the rule allows for the RNC to now engage in the race, the state-level Republican Party will continue to focus on the general election, as opposed to focusing on primary politics. But Simmons said the importance of the race — it’s one of Senate Republicans’ most vulnerable seats in the 2026 midterm elections — necessitated the move to engage the national party early.[…]
It’s vulnerable because you people have spent two election cycles shoving Thom Tillis down our throats. You’ve run off a lot of base voters and disgusted many of those who still hang around. The polls showed Tillis to be a politically-dead-man-walking, so you replace him with his mentee, protégé and unaccomplished, mentally-challenged little brother Michael Whatley. Voters smelled that rat from a mile away, so you need DC’s help to cram HIM down our throats in 2026. (*Good luck.*)
MORE:
[..] “Because Michael Whatley is the Trump–endorsed candidate, we wanted to go ahead and do this,” he said.
The move adds more weight to the already hefty influence the national Republican Party has in individual elections around the country. Trump’s valued endorsement, of course, is the single biggest factor.[…]
Trump – inexplicably – is taking political advice on North Carolina from Mitt Romney fans Chris LaCivita and Jonathan Felts. Many of you may remember that Romney was neither a fan of Trump nor MAGA during his time in the US Senate. WHY, then, take advice from disciples of a guy who has hated your guts and sought to foil every Trump / MAGA initiative coming down the pipeline?
LaCivita and Felts have history in NC politics. Felts was Ted Budd‘s campaign press secretary and transition director. LaCivita ran Pat McCrory‘s awesome 2016 campaign against Roy Cooper. (LaCivita has been dispatched by Trump to try and save RINO senators John Cornyn and Lindsey Graham from the unwashed MAGA hordes.)
MORE:
[…] The RNC has also made similar moves in two other states to benefit a pair of incumbent senators appointed to their seats earlier this year: Ashley Moody of Florida, and Jon Husted of Ohio.
Husted spokesman Tyson Shepard confirmed Thursday that “Rule 11 is in place” for Husted after Ohio’s three RNC members signed letters approving early investment in his race, and one of the RNC’s 168 members told NBC News that Florida’s RNC delegation did the same for Moody.
The move is more common for incumbents. Neither Moody nor Husted face significant primary challenges.
[…]
Mike Whatley is SIX – count ’em, SIX – more years of Thom Tillis. Whatley, during his time in the public eye, has shown nothing but contempt for conservatives and the MAGA cause. He’s been a good boy for his DC handlers in reading the scripts they’ve handed him. But he’s been a real good soldier for big brother Thom Tillis‘s never-ending campaign to monetize public service and foil the MAGA agenda at every turn.
The primaries have always been a chance for us to make our voices heard. Now, our alleged leaders are trying to take that away from us.
Don Brown has been a soldier for the MAGA cause. It would seem to me that a vote for Brown would be a vote for giving Donald Trump one more soldier in the fight to fix this country.
Maybe it is just time to end the fable about not endorsing in primaries. If party organizations in Washington and Raleigh can do it, why not every other party organization? I have been a supporter of the party staying out of primaries, but if one group can erect a fiction to get in, then everyone should be able to get in. ALL should stay completely OUT of primaries, or there should be procedures where everyone can get in.
I also think that there is a good argument that activating RNC’s Rule 11 is itself a clear violation of the NCGOP Plan of Organization requirement that party officers stay out of primaries. Will anyone seek to remove these three party officers for taking sides in a primary? Just because RNC rules allow something does not mean that our own governing documents allow it.
Both US Senate candidates have their own weaknesses and neither is the strong candidate we need. Brown can potentially fix his problem, the question of being able to raise money, easier than Whatley could fix his weaknesses.
Maybe we just need to establish a procedure with a supermajority to make endorsements in primaries, not a handful of pooh-bahs, but a super majority of a more representative group – say a two thirds majority or even three fourths of the state executive committee for statewide candidates and a similar super majority of county or district committees for lower races. Some other states have such provisions, and those procedures seem to be a whole lot fairer than the fiction that seems to exist now in our state.
It also sickens me that the Washington, DC boys are trying to ride to the rescue of some lousy liberal “Undocumented Democrats”, Lindsay Graham in South Carolina and John Cornyn in Texas. Cornyn’s liberalism got him loudly booed by the delegates at the Texas Republican convention, and Graham has been censured by a long list of party organizations in SC for his rampant liberalism. Both face top tier conservative challengers. Former two term SC Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer is taking on Graham and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is challenging Cornyn and already leading Cornyn in the polls. I suspect that we will see the same in Louisiana where liberal “Undocumented Democrat” incumbent Bill Cassidy is being challenged by conservative State Treasurer and former Congressman John Fleming who was a Freedom Caucus member.. Fleming, Bauer, and Paxton would be a HUGE improvement in the Senate over the three absolute duds that are there now.
The Republican voters of each state are the ones who should select our nominees, not outsiders from Washington, DC. Party leaders in each state should play by their state party’s rules, not invent ways around them.
It will also be interesting to see how this NC primary situation is handled at the upcoming Hall of Fame dinner. Will both candidates be treated equally at that event? I hope so, but time will tell.
I’m hearing from reliable sources that the NCGA members are being pressured to fully endorse Micheal Whatley in the primary. If this pans out to be true and if any of the Moore County delegation endorses Whatley in the primary I will work against you in subsequent election cycles. The NCGA has no place or authority to endorse in Republican primaries. Where has integrity gone?
I have drafted a petition for ExCom members to call for a disciplinary hearing to consider whether Simmons, Brassington and Broyhill have violated our State Plan of Organization by violating our bylaws and usurping the authority of the NCGOP Executive Committee.
By my read of the State Plan, they had no authority to commit the state to RNC Rule 11. While that practice may be permissible in other states, it is not permitted by our NCGOP operating rules. ARTICLE IX [F] states: “Each officer and each member of any Committee created pursuant to this Plan of Organization shall refrain from utilizing the powers and dignity of his office or position in any Republican primary for public office at any level. Nor shall any Committee created pursuant to this Plan of Organization make or issue, in any way, manner or form, any endorsement in any Republican primary for public office. Nor shall any Committee issue any contrary endorsement or withhold support from any non-partisan judicial candidates properly endorsed pursuant to this Plan of Organization.”
The NCGOP lawyers can interpret and contort this bylaw all they wish, as lawyers often do, but I believe the NCGOP ExCom will take a very dim view that our three members of the RNC did willfully and egregiously violate this rule and that they stole the powers of the Executive Committee – the only body empowered to authorize exceptions on behalf of the 2 million republicans of the state – to pay homage to their buddy. All three must be held to account.
We were forced to convene such a hearing for our former state party Chairman Hasan Harnett (who was charged with no crimes), and for the “Haywood Five” republicans who were guilty of posting JibJab videos mocking elected party and government officials. If the ExCom was compelled to convene a disciplinary hearing for these folks, then surely we can serve justice for our present leadership- that is, unless we have a two-tiered system of justice in the NCGOP.