BY MILES LAYTON

When Chowan County’s Republican Party held its annual convention, GOP faithful learned about the strides made in Northeastern North Carolina and elected officers to lead the path ahead to the next election cycle – 2026.

Let’s face facts – you’re not going to be able to read this kind of story anywhere else but the Albemarle Observer, so put on your reading glasses. Democrats, when you folks have a county convention, we’ll be there to cover that too. 

Many familiar faces attended the convention held Wednesday at Nixon’s Catering, including Sheriff Scooter Basnight, Clerk of Superior Court Dwayne Goodwin, Councilman Sambo Dixon, County Commissioners Larry McLaughlin and Ron Cummings along with Tony Shaffer, and some of the state’s top Republican officials such as Jason Simmons, chairman of state’s GOP, and Harvey West, party chairman of the 1st Congressional District. Convention’s chairman was former Chowan County Commissioner Joe Hollowell with the guest speaker being NC Senator Norm Sanderson, 1st District.  Photos come from Christina Williams — thanks!

Let’s start this story with who will be serving two-year terms as the county’s Republican leaders for 2025-26 – Jennifer Rice as chairwoman; outgoing chairman Bob Kirby as vice chairman; Dick Mayer as secretary; Marypat Gaffney as assistant secretary; Brad Cansler as treasurer – all ran unopposed and were elected unanimously. More on incoming Chairwoman Rice will appear in a future story. 

Important note — 1st District Congressional GOP Convention starts at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 12 at the Martin County Schools Innovation Center, Williamston.

NC State GOP Convention is between June 5 and June 8 at the Koury Convention Center in Greensboro. For more information, see ncgopconvention.org.

Convention Takeaways

Here are a few bullet points from the meeting:  

Let’s put this thought from Sanderson’s speech out there – if party leaders and GOP voters don’t continue to organize and get out the vote to be victorious for the 2026 midterms, President Trump will come under siege from Democrats who hate him and will seek impeachment – same as they did twice before during his first term. 

“We got to keep our majority or we are going to lose our president,” Sanderson said.  

Harvey West and other speakers recalled the days, maybe not so long ago, when Northeastern NC was “blue” and dominated by Democrats. That’s changed dramatically within the last 20 years, so there’s much to celebrate, but GOP leaders said there is still work that needs to be done to build on these gains. West spoke of a newly formed federal campaign account with more than $15,000 that will help fund GOP candidates near and far across Northeast NC – so that’s encouraging news for Republicans who had far less party funds to contribute to local candidates in the past.     

Speakers noted how the Congressional race for the 1st District was very close – though incumbent Democrat Don Davis did not secure a majority of the votes cast (49.5%/186,341 votes) in a three-way race, he narrowly defeated Republican Laurie Buckhout, a resident of Edenton, who captured 47.8%/180,034 votes) with Libertarian candidate Tom Bailey garnering 2.6 % – 9,949 votes. 

Two takeaways from that – first, if the Libertarian candidate, who historically rarely gains any traction, had not captured that many votes, thereby sandbagging Buckhout, she might have been elected to congress. Second, this is the first time in at least 125 years that the Democratic candidate did not capture a majority of the vote – that’s huge how a Republican came within a hair of winning that race.

Remember, a Democrat has represented the 1st District since the late 1800s. Also, note that Democrats, opposed to Republican policies, stood for VERY different things in the decades following the Civil War, so much so that college buildings or streets named after their standard bearers have been renamed in an effort to rewrite the party’s history.   

Further, Davis’ donors, many of whom were from out of state, contributed a fortune – around $5.6 million – to hold onto that congressional seat, outraising Buckhout, who received around $4.7 million, making this the most expensive campaign race in North Carolina during the 2024 campaign cycle. As opposed to Buckhout’s donors coming more from in-state contributors, the lion’s share of Davis’ money came from corporate donations with a large share from ACT Blue, a Democratic Party political action committee (PAC) and fundraising platform; a PAC that’s been in the news recently.     

What Did They Say?  

Let’s start with local folks before breaking out to state party leaders.  

Praising outgoing Chowan GOP Chairman Bob Kirby, Convention Chairman and longtime party official Joe Hollowell said, “You’ve done a great job and we appreciate it very much.”     

Kirby has served as chairman for four years, during which time conservatives have dominated the county commission and even the nonpartisan Board of Education has a more “red” outlook on matters. Regionally, Kirby has been active in party politics, too, and he has served on many boards and committees, including as chairman of the Albemarle Commission.   

During Kirby’s farewell speech, he said public service comes from the heart, praised God, thanked his wife, Michelle, and praised the past chairman, Jim Robison, RIP. 

“It was an honor and privilege to serve,” he said. 

Newly installed county Republican chairwoman Jennifer Rice spoke to the party faithful, saying what’s on many folks’ minds after Trump was elected, “It’s really great to be a Republican right now.” She praised Trump and pledged to continue to keep the party’s momentum moving forward, to keep winning!  

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From Senator Sanderson’s speech – he talked about pending legislation and matters flowing from Raleigh politics.  

First, there is a new Democrat governor, probably the same as the old governor, to borrow/paraphrase the Who’s song, “Won’t get fooled again.” Sanderson said he knows Governor Josh Stein’s playbook because he sat behind this Democrat when they were serving together in the General Assembly. Sanderson predicts that, as with Stein’s predecessor, Roy Cooper, the Republican-dominated legislature will be overturning Stein’s vetoes. 

Like many Republicans, Sanderson was not a big fan of Cooper’s reign – he had the most veto overrides in state history — no governor even comes close. Republicans need one vote in the House to maintain their 3/5th supermajority in the House needed to overcome Stein’s veto pen as governor.   

That said, Republicans remain undaunted and are ready to move forward. Sanderson there is a bill ahead that seeks to prohibit the state from suing the President – meaning the taxpayers aren’t going to fund any frivolous lawsuits filed by a partisan Attorney General seeking to block President Trump’s policies.    

Sanderson said a bill dubbed the “North Carolina Border Protection Act” allows NC law enforcement to assist US Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and would require an audit of any state benefits that may be provided to undocumented immigrants. Last week, the bill passed the Senate with a 30-13 vote and is headed to the House. 

When Sanderson announced that the state’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programming is on the chopping block, he received loud applause at the county convention.  

Sanderson said that the legislature seeks to prohibit students from using cellphones during school hours. Though there would be certain reasonable exceptions carved into the proposed law, the plan is to restrict cellphone usage which distracts from classroom time. 

And then there is something educators know about that’s called “March of the lemons” — where teachers, maybe not good ones, move from district to district. Sanderson said a proposed law seeks to require information be provided about the reasons why that teacher is moving from between districts so that the new district can be better informed when making hiring decisions. Such notes do not exist now so “lemons” can march from district to district without consequences.     

Speaking of schools, Sanderson plans to introduce a bill requiring public university students to take a 3-credit hour course on understanding government to graduate. Sanderson said many students these days know little about civics – Constitutional rights, how state and federal government works.  

For folks who make their living from commercial fishing, Sanderson pledged to protect this industry because, “If we don’t do something, it’s going to die – we are going to lose it.” Sanderson spent time Wednesday in Nags Head talking to fishermen who are quite angry with proposed state rules that may destroy commercial crabbing. 

On that note, Sanderson pledged to help the farmers, too, who have been suffering since last season’s very poor crop yields. Failure to act means many farmers face an uncertain future.  

“We need to help the farmers or they will not make it,” he said.  

Western North Carolina – Sanderson said the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene was terrible. He talked to folks who watched their family members die. One particular story was about a man who asked his wife to move the family car to higher ground – she didn’t return because she was swept away inside the vehicle. Sanderson said because Eastern NC has experienced flooding in the past from hurricanes, folks around these parts have been very supportive of Western NC.  

On that note, because the state has needed to dip into rainy day funds and other factors, Sanderson said, that could affect present and future budget planning, shortfalls may be ahead.

Since this article is getting to be quite long – maybe putting people to sleep – I’ll leave you with Jason Simmons’ remarks at the county convention who is running for re-election as the state’s GOP Chairman.    
 
Folks, it’s a pleasure to be with you this evening. It’s good to see a lot of friendly faces about this time. A year ago, I stood for election to be your state party chair, and it’s been an honor ever since to be able to work alongside you, shoulder to shoulder. As we’ve moved forward, this state, this state, you’ve heard a lot of good things about what’s happened across the first district, and that’s indicative of what we’re continuing to see across our state. You see where our state was a decade ago, two decades ago. 

Folks, we’ve come a long way as a state. You look at where we’ve been. About a week ago, I was down in Robeson County visiting with our party there. I walked into a restaurant and it looked very familiar as a decade earlier when I had sat down with that good county chair who still the county chair, God bless him, and we talked about how are we gonna win Robeson County? They were up against a significant deficit minority party.

Today, they’re the dominant party. They flipped all of their seats. They’re on the verge of making sure all their county commission seats will be majority-held by Republicans.

That’s what we’re seeing across our entire state because people have understood the Democrat Party is a disaster. You’ve seen what they’ve done through our country and into our own state the last four years when I’d say Biden was in charge, but we know better. 

Yeah, you saw the management of the decline of America over these past four years. In the short six to seven weeks since we’ve had President Trump back, you’ve seen hope and optimism restored, but more importantly, the American dream, once again, is within reach. People have that expectation that they can start a family and buy a home. That’s what we do this for.

You are here tonight out of sacrifice, but that is an investment in our communities, an investment in our state and an investment in our country because you understand what you’re doing is not just for your state and country, not just for our communities, but we do this because of our family. 

We do this to ensure we can provide a better opportunity and a better life for those we work so hard for. When we look at where we are as a state, when President Trump was elected back in 2016, Democrats had a significant advantage on voter registration. Since that time, Democratic registration has dropped by 300,000. Republican registration has grown by 300,000, and we are within 30,000 voter registrations of overtaking the Democrats and being that majority party here in North Carolina. That’s because of you. 

For the first time in this past election, Republicans had more votes than Democrats during early vote. That’s because of you and your hard work. Thank you for that effort. We tested that back in a special election where we fought so hard during the early vote, and during that time, we were able to win the early vote for the first time in that special election. And we’ve taken those lessons and been able to implement that statewide and as we’ve done so, we’ve seen those results.

The fight, though, is not yesterday, but it’s the fight that we have in front of us as we look forward to these midterms in 2026, making sure that we are organized, that we are prepared, and that we’re ready to fight. And I appreciate the opportunity to be with you tonight and to continue to ask for your support as we go into state convention in June.