Republicans Shouldn’t Lose Focus On Local Races

Are Republicans hyper-focused on national level politics that we are ignoring our county races? Just taking a casual look at my Facebook feed, I see Georgia Republican activists seemingly more focused on Congressional, US Senate, and Presidential races more so than the local level races.

We lost GA-06 and barely won GA-07 in 2018. That has caused a panic among Republicans in Georgia. “We *must* take back the 6th and hold the 7th!” is the rallying cry. I agree that Republicans need to elect strong Republican candidates who uphold conservative values and appeal to a broad general electorate over hyper right-wing who are popular in the MAGA echo chamber do not have broad appeal during the general election.

One county where I’m seeing a hyper-focus on national offices rather than local offices is here in Gwinnett. Two officers in the Gwinnett Republican Party have filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. They have the freedom to choose to run for any office they want, but my unsolicited advice would be to focus on the local level.

Gwinnett Republicans are in danger of losing seats on the local level. Gwinnett County Commission Chairman Charlotte Nash has already announced her decision to not run for re-election. Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter has contemplated running for re-election…but not as a Republican.

This should be a message to my fellow Republicans in Gwinnett and our party leadership that we need to focus on the ground game. Unfortunately, it sounds like we are focused on litmus tests and purifying (shrinking) the party further. From what I recall during my tenure as Walker County GOP Chairman, a party cannot prevent a candidate from qualifying if they sign the affidavit that they are legally qualified for the office they seek and pay the qualifying fee.

I’ll be honest: I’m more interested in hearing about a commission candidate’s views on local transit plans rather than their views on Roe vs. Wade or the Heartbeat Bill which is now signed into law.

My hope is that county Republican Parties will work to win local elections. Yes, congressional, Senate, and Presidential elections are important, but as the saying goes, all politics is local.

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