Since Trump narrowly won North Carolina in 2020, Republicans have been pursuing a multipronged strategy of election subversion and voter suppression to gain electoral advantages in the state. The following are among the state GOP leaders who show unfettered loyalty to Trump and his ongoing claim that any election he doesn’t win is “rigged”:
- Jason Simmons | Chair
With Trump’s backing, longtime Republican operative and former NC GOP Executive Director Jason Simmons stepped into the role of chair in March 2024 after the former president chose election denier and former North Carolina GOP Chair Michael Whatley to lead the Republican National Committee. “Simmons has played footsie with election fraud conspiracies,” according to AJ News, which points out that he has also made Facebook posts “echoing Trump’s stolen election rhetoric.” When running to become the state party’s new chair, Simmons pledged to “Secure our elections for a free, fair, and transparent process. Easy to vote, hard to cheat!” - Courtney Geels | District 4 Chair
When Courtney Geels ran for the U.S. House in 2022, she was included in The Washington Post’s list of 291 election deniers running for office that year. She is also called out on the Insurrection Index. Her husband was involved in one of the election fraud lawsuits in Georgia, where she says that he found 100,000 irregular votes. - Roger Farina | District 13 Chair
In November 2022, Roger Farina was still spreading the Big Lie by retweeting support for Mike Lindell, who was attempting to sell more pillows with the promo code TrumpWon. - Jim Womack | Lee County Chair
Jim Womack is founder of the North Carolina Election Integrity Team (NCEIT), a far-right watchdog group “aimed at rooting out voter fraud.” He fundamentally disagrees with the idea that registering more voters or pushing for greater voter turnout helps the efforts of conservatives. Womack founded NCEIT with Cleta Mitchell, the top GOP strategist, Trump loyalist and election denier who runs the Conservative Partnership Institute’s so-called Election Integrity Network. - Virginia Wasserberg | Pasquotank County Chair
Virginia Wasserberg supported SB 747, the comprehensive voter suppression legislation that passed in North Carolina in 2023, and has worked as a party-aligned poll observer. The RNC and state GOP asked her to intervene in three lawsuits filed by Democratic groups attempting to challenge the legislation. - Bryson Smith | Rutherford County Chair
On January 1, 2021, Bryson Smith retweeted a video about supposed irregularities in Georgia with the hashtag #stopthesteal, promoting the lie that President Biden had won the 2020 election fraudulently. - Keith Senter | Surry County Chair
In 2022, Keith Senter aggressively targeted the Surry County elections director, repeatedly harassing her with endless records requests and attempts to gain access to voting equipment that he claimed had been hacked. As part of his relentless harassment, he put up signs outside the elections office that read: “The People’s Trust is SHATTERED” and “We DEMAND a Full FORENSIC Audit.”