Judicial Victory Fund? (Where did the money go?)

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It’s become apparent that leftists successfully took out NCGOP US Senate nominee Michael Whatley and four of the party’s judicial nominees with an avalanche of mailers tying each GOP candidate to convicted sex offender Harvey West.  I saw nothing disseminated in response.

No rebuttal or denial mailers from the GOP side. *NOTHING.*

The Democrat mailers appeared to be produced and disseminated by a Washington, DC-based group. 

I was under the impression that the state GOP had this Judicial Victory Fund to finance things like this on behalf of the party’s candidates for the bench.

Surprisingly, after talking with folks tied to TWO of the NCGOP’s four judicial candidates, I learned that none of them had seen one dime from any entity along those lines.

There is no entity called “Judicial Victory Fund” listed with the state board of elections.  The JVF is IDed on the NCGOP website. 

We found some donations to the Judicial Victory Fund on a website called Transparency USA.  It appears about $1,500 was raised in 2024.  It appears about $6,000 was raised over three months in 2026.

(A source close to the state party told us all of the fundraising proceeds were spent on palm cards and voter guides promoting the judicial candidates early in the campaign season.)

The aforementioned Mr. West was tied to a social / fundraising event called the annual North Carolina Judicial Picnic. 

We found a webpage for the Judicial Picnic hosted by the NC Federation of Republican Men.  The page bears a date of August 29, 2024.

 

 

 

 

We can’t find any filings indicating how much these events raised. There have reportedly been picnics since 2024. How much made it to the GOP judicial candidates?  Where is the paperwork?

We’ve heard all kinds of stories about how cash-poor the Democrats are compared to the state GOP.  If that is the case, how did the Democrats afford a DC firm to design and disseminate those mud-slinging mailers? How come the NCGOP did not shell out for a response to those mailers?

The hits on Whatley and Stevens clearly trickled down to and impacted the three other judges.  Spending some money to play defense might have helped these candidates. But we’ll likely never know.