We had a successful Republican candidate door-knocking blitz last Saturday for our endorsed State House candidate Gary Chaffee and for Brad Wheeler for re-election to the county School Board! Over the course of the day, we reached out to several hundred households, left candidate brochures, and had wholesome conversations. Overall, the reception was very pleasant. Folks were honored that we would personally reach out to them to inform them about these critical races.
Gary Chaffee is running against a radical first-term Democrat Lisa Campbell (with an “F” 22% vote score in 2024) who, for example, voted that non-citizens can vote in GA elections (HR780) and voted to allow gender reassignment for minors (SB140). People we spoke to were shocked to learn this information. But few are aware of what happens at the State House level, since the media focuses mostly on national politics, and gives little attention to local politics and almost none to the state level.
People were also pleased to hear about the good work Brad Wheeler has done over the years on the county school board, and how he has supported Superintendent Ragsdale. We need to maintain the Republican-majority on the county school board and Wheeler has been targeted by Democrats in this election.
There are still opportunities to volunteer for these exceptional Republican candidates. Just send us a message if you would like to volunteer to door-knock or make phone calls for either one of them.
Both campaigns will continue to have teams working their precincts over next few weeks leading up to early voting, which starts on October 15th.
Also, Trump Force 47 has volunteers door-knocking for our endorsed candidate for POTUS Donald Trump, if you would like to help with that outreach!
Powder Springs, GA — Thank you to everyone who came out to the Candidate Meet ‘n Greet we co-hosted with the Cobb GOP LM03 precinct in House District 19 on July 25th. In addition to hearing from some remarkable candidates like Gary Chaffee and Bradford Wheeler, we were pleased to be joined by Cobb GOP Chairwoman Salleigh Grubbs and the new GA GOP National Committeewoman Amy Kremer (both Cobb RA members). The room was packed.
Under the leadership of our Cobb RA President Chris Deeb, the Cobb County Republican Assembly has also been pleased to donate several thousand dollars to key candidates in local races.
Our Treasurer Angie Rawles has gone the extra mile to make campaign buttons for these candidates that she delivered with their donation checks (as you can see in the photo).
Our ability to help these candidates is made possible by the generosity of our members and event attendees, so thank you!
We will also be organizing campaign door knocking in the month of September, so let us know if you would like to volunteer to help with promoting some of these exceptional Republican candidates!
On the May 24th primary, three local Cobb-RA (and thus GRA) endorsed candidates won their primaries for the Republican nomination for State House! We wish to congratulate “Tess” Redding, who is running for State House District 37, Olivia Angel, who is running for State House District 39, and Anna Tillman, who is running for State House District 43!
(L to R) Olivia Angel, “Tess” Redding, and Anna Tillman
Tess Redding will face Democrat incumbent Mary Frances Williams, who has a GRA-voter score of a 41% (D). Although she’s running in South Cobb, Redding impressively actually won 984 more votes in her Republican primary than Democrat Williams did in hers.
Meanwhile, smiling Olivia Angel will have to wait until the runoff is complete to see which Democrat she’ll face off with in November.
Anna Tillman will face Democrat Solomon Adesanya. Running for an open seat, Tillman earned 981 more votes than both Democrats combined garnered in their Democrat primary.
In addition, we also wish to congratulate Caesar Gonzales for winning his Republican nomination for Congressional District 13 to challenge Democrat incumbent David Scott! Congressional District 13 has long been the most oddly-shaped congressional district (based on a design leftover from when the Democrats still ran the state legislature). In addition to covering most of south Cobb County, it also includes portions of Douglas, Fulton, and other counties that wrap along the southwestern belly of I-285.
Moreover, now that Marjorie Taylor Greene has a portion of her congressional district in West Cobb, we are especially excited about her overwhelming primary win!
Cobb RA President Chris Deeb
If you would like to help us promote these candidates to win in the general election in November, please contact our Cobb County Republican Assembly President Chris Deeb!
Our candidates will need volunteers to help with phone-banking, canvassing door-to-door, sign-waving and fundraising. You can donate to help us support our candidates. There are many ways to help!
Some of our candidates may be running in redder districts than others, but we don’t want to take anything for granted. Even in traditionally blue districts, pushing for Republican turnout will help Republican performance in state-wide and congressional races. Let’s not leave any ground to the enemy.
The Cobb County Republican Assembly’s Executive Committee has voted to elect Christopher Deeb the new President of the Cobb County Republican Assembly chapter. The vote was held after Debbie Fisher announced she needed to step down from the position in order to better keep up with her new duties as an officer on the Cobb County Republican Party’s Executive Committee working with Salleigh Grubbs.
Chris Deeb
Christopher Deeb serves as the fifth President of the Cobb County Republican Assembly, having succeeded Debbie Fisher, Frank Molesky, Debra Williams, and Michael Davis in that position. He is the father of two daughters, and husband to Lily Deeb, who currenlty serves as the Cobb GOP Secretary. As a professional he works as a senior software engineer, and grew up in metro-Atlanta, graduating from the University of Georgia Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Computer Science.
Joel Allen
In addition, the Cobb RAs voted earlier to elect Joel Allen the new Secretary on the Executive Committee to replace Catherine Floam. Catherine is also now serving on the Cobb County Republican Party’s Executive Committee. Prior to that, the position was held by Jeff Souther, another admirable activist for the Cobb Republican cause. Joel also serves as a House District Chairman for the Cobb County Republican Party.
We appreciate both of these men offering themselves to serve in these roles.
State Rep. Bert Reeves being applauded by Speaker David Ralston
State Rep. Bert Reeves (Marietta), a crony of corrupt Speaker of the House David Ralston (Blue Ridge), has announced that he is resigning from the legislature to work for GA Tech. This announcement has triggered a jungle special election to take place on June 15th for the central-Cobb district.
Former State Rep. Charles Gregory
Bert Reeves has a “D” rating from the GRA with a voting scorecard of only 27 points. Several Democrats in the legislature have better voter scores than Reeves has. He was first elected to the Georgia State House of Representatives with the backing of corrupt Speaker David Ralston’s Swamp-machine in Atlanta in order to defeat constitutionalist Republican State Rep. Charles Gregory (Kennesaw)—a champion for constitutional carry in the legislature. Gregory had defeated Ralston’s former crony State Rep. Judy Manning (Kennesaw) in the 2012 primary election by 819 votes. After winning that election, Gregory quickly developed a reputation similar to the late, great State Rep. Bobby Franklin (Cherokee) of voting out of lock-step with Ralston’s Establishment agenda. Besides being a stalwart champion of gun-rights for Georgia citizens, Gregory stood up for jury nullification and opposed increased debt spending for the state budget and corporate welfare expansions. He was labeled by Ralston has a “troublemaker” and targeted for defeat in the next Republican primary.
Ralston maneuvered support behind Gregory’s primary opponent, whom he groomed in 2014. That included not only raising funds for Reeves but also arranging for a major slander attack campaign against him. As a result, Ralston helped Reeves beat Gregory in the 2014 Republican primary by 247 votes. He accomplished this with the help of the then-Cobb GOP Chairman Joe Dendy (who is now serving time in prison), and Dendy’s then 1st Vice Chair Rose Wing. Ralston pulled the same stunt successfully with small-government Republican colleague State Rep. Sam Moore (Cherokee), but was finally blocked when he attempted to pull off a third squashing of a strong constitutionalist Republican when he encountered State Rep. Matt Gurtler (Tiger). Gurtler managed to withstand two attempts by Ralston to defeat him in Republican primary challenges before he finally ran for Congress.
Now seven years later, it is sad that former State Rep. Charles Gregory no longer lives in House District 34 in Cobb County and so could not qualify to run for the seat.
Instead, two other Republican candidates have qualified to run in this special election: David Blinkhorn and Devan Seabaugh. Not much is known about where they really stand under pressure on Republican principles or what their track record might be, if they have one. Blinkhorn is a former Kennesaw Councilman with some voting history on local issues.
In addition, this jungle special election will include a Libertarian named Chris Neill and two Democrats: Sam Hensley, Jr. and Priscilla Smith.
At the Republican county convention today, held at Roswell Street Baptist Church, three candidates for Chair and their slates saw their campaigns reach their conclusion as the delegates were finally called upon to vote.
The election was delayed after the Nominating Committee announced it had its own slate compiled from the candidates the majority of that committee deemed to be the best candidates for the different executive positions. Debate ensued from the floor that the delegates had the right to vote on the three original slates offered by candidates Salleigh Grubbs, Pamela Alayon, and Lisa Adkins. A minority report from some members fo the Nominating Committee (including Cobb RA members Nathaniel Darnell and Frank Molesky) was given echoing the concern that the three original slates should have been presented by the Nominating Committee.
Nathaniel Darnell
“The primary thing we on the Nominating Committee should be doing,” said Cobb RA Chairman Nathaniel Darnell, “is ensuring that none of the candidates running for Republican officer or delegate positions are under-cover Democrats. Second, we should ensure each officer candidate is capable at some minimum level of performing the job they’re running for. Beyond that, it gets very subjective. And, of course, the Establishment wing that favors Big Government and Corporate Welfare is going to tend to oppose principled candidates who have a reputation for standing up against those kinds of corruption. That is certainly part of what we witnessed in the discussion in the Nominating Committee that led to their proposed alternative slate.”
The debate over the Nominating Committee slate took up over 30 minutes of time at the Cobb County GOP Convention—time which could have been spent discussing and passing the submitted resolutions. The Nominating Committee slate was predictably shot down, and the time wasted on that discussion ensured that the convention never got to address the resolutions. The Cobb GOP had only negotiated to have the facility at Roswell Street Baptist Church rented for use until 2:30pm, and the convention used up all of that time voting on the slates of officers, delegates, and alternates, being forced to postpone the resolutions for consideration until later when the new Cobb County GOP Committee meets for the first time under its new county chairwoman.
Of course, it would not be surprising if ensuring the body of the convention never got to vote on the resolutions was part of what the Establishment intended all along. It was pretty clear that most activist delegates in the Cobb GOP favored the proposed resolutions passed in other counties that called for reprimanding elected officials such as Secretary of State Raffensperger and Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan due to their role in enabling the likely election fraud and abuse that took place last year. Many in the GOP Establishment were hoping to avoid that embarrassment even though activists in the party are threatening to leave the GOP altogether if such officials are not held accountable.
Salleigh Grubbs
In perhaps another example of Establishment-wing craftiness, the Nominating Committee slate nominated Salleigh Grubbs for the Chair position to run against her original slate. Some suspected that this move was intended to dilute the vote of her supporters and eliminate her candidacy on the first ballot. But when the Nominating Committee slate was shot down, that removed any confusion as for which slate her supporters would vote. Although the exact results of the election were not announced, witnesses of the tally reported that Salleigh’s margin of victory was substantial, just shy of a super-majority. Cobb RA member candidate Pamela Alayon and her slate came in second place. Lisa Adkins and her slate came in third place.
Debbie Fisher
Besides Salleigh, most of the new Cobb GOP Executive Committee is composed of Cobb RA members—particularly Cobb RA President Debbie Fisher, who was elected as Vice Chair of Grassroots Development. Debbie Fisher was elected last year as President of the Cobb RA chapter due in no small part to her efforts to hold the then Republican (in name only)-controlled Cobb County Commissioners accountable for their wasteful spending and ensuing tax increases. Debbie has been assigned with putting together a task force to monitor and rate the votes of the county commissioners as we seek to keep Republicans in Cobb more aware of the activities of their local government.
Overall, the election of Salleigh’s new team appears to represent a victory for the grassroots Republican activists over the fat-cat, corporate welfare Establishment that seeks to insulate itself from accountability. Salleigh was first inspired to get more involved last November after the reports of election fraud and abuse put the outcome of the general election in doubt. She and her supporters will be working hard to implement reforms prior to election year 2022.
The Cobb County Republican Assembly (Cobb RAs) completed the voting for its Electronic Endorsement Convention last Friday, April 2nd at 10pm. In honor of the Good Friday / Easter / Resurrection Sunday weekend, the Cobb RA board decided to wait to announce the results until today.
The Electronic Endorsement Convention was conducted after the completion of our Candidate Forum last Tuesday, providing participants with an education to make an informed decision. Here are some photos of that event (thanks to John Delves to taking many of these photos):
Chairman Nathaniel Darnell explains the RAs
Lisa Adkins
Salleigh Grubbs
The candidates answer questions
Violinists playing “The Star Spangled Banner”
Attendees singing the 1st & 4th verses of The National Anthem
Our volunteers running registration
According to the bylaws of the Georgia Republican Assembly and of the Cobb chapter, candidates can only be endorsed by at least two-third majority of the participating RA membership. Members had three days to register and vote. Voters got to choose between four options: Lisa Adkins, Pamela Alayon, Salleigh Grubbs, or no endorsement at all.
This morning at the Cobb County GOP Breakfast, a third candidate added her name to the race for Cobb County GOP Chair; lifelong resident of Marietta, GA, a business leader and recent Cobb RA member, Salleigh Grubbs.
Salleigh Grubbs
Salleigh joins a race that has two Republican women running for Chair, Pam Alayon and Dr. Lisa Adkins. Salleigh’s motivation to join the race came after witnessing the frustrating outcomes of the 2020 general election where Cobb County lost every seat and majority except for the School Board. Like many conservative patriots, Salleigh has expressed her fear for the direction that our Country and County is headed and Saturday morning she stated that we have a trust problem in the Republican Party. During her announcement Salleigh said, “What defines us are our principles, our Conservative principles,” which reiterates a message the Cobb RA has promoted for years!
According to her speech and press release, for the past 30 years Salleigh has proven her leadership skills as a successful business executive in the Chemical Coating Industry. She has been involved in Civic organizations and Politics throughout her adult life as a citizen advocate who defends our Constitution, promotes Republican values and the principles of smaller government, lower taxes and education. Salleigh’s civic involvement includes the following activities: current Treasurer of the Chemical Coaters Association of Georgia and the past president, former Voice of Democracy Judge for the Veterans of Foreign Wars and past member of the Marietta Middle School SGT. Since the 2020 Election Salleigh has been working every day to restore Republican principles, defend freedom and fight for election integrity in her county and state.
Salleigh announced that she was proud to have received several endorsements from notable politicos. The admired conservative former Cobb County Board of Commissioner Chairman, Bill Byrne said of her: “Cobb County is in dire need for strong and conservative party leadership to address the needs of the Republican Party and it is with a great deal of pleasure to support and endorse Salleigh Grubbs to lead the party into the future.”
Conservative Radio talk show host, John Fredrick’s told his listeners that Salleigh is doing exactly what needs to be done all across America; she is the perfect person that is needed to make the necessary changes in the Cobb County Republican Party. In a press release he also had this to say; “More conservative America First agenda citizens like Salleigh Grubbs need to step up and run for office – whether it is for the Republican Party, or local, state and national offices!” You can read more about Salleigh on her website https://rallywithsalleigh.com/.
This morning at the Cobb GOP Headquarters for the monthly breakfast, two activists announced their intention to run for Cobb GOP Chairman to replace Jason Shepherd as his term is about to end mid-April: Pam Alayon and Lisa Adkins. Both have been active in the Cobb County Republican Party for years. Dr. Lisa Adkins has been a leading volunteer in the Cobb YRs for years, and currently serves as the Vice Chair of the 11th District GOP organization. She made a soft announcement several days ago on social media, and publicly presented her candidacy at the conclusion of today’s breakfast meeting. Lisa is running on a motto to “modernize and revitalize” the Cobb Republican Party.
Prior to that during the breakfast this morning, activist Jeff Souther (who formerly served on the Executive Committee for the Cobb RAs) sponsored the announcement from Pam Alayon that she would also be running. Pam has been serving as the Vice Chair of Membership in the Cobb County Republican Party under Jason Shepherd, and serves on the Diversity Board of the National Federation of Republican Women. Pam announced her proposed slate of executive officers that would be campaigning with her:
Chairman – Pamela Alayon
First Vice-Chair – Jean Young
Vice-Chair of Party and Grassroots Development – Dr. Fun Fong
Vice-Chair of Communications and Information – Jeff Souther
Vice-Chair of Membership – Mario Russo
Secretary – Catherine Floam
Treasurer – Dave Tolka
Pam Alayon
Former Georgia Republican Party Chair Sue Everhart from Cobb spoke expressing her endorsement of Pam Alayon as well. Alayon announced that her candidacy represents a more collaborative leadership style than many other chairs have applied in the past. She indicated that her slate of executive officers would be empowered to lead the organization more, that she would not be micro-managing or top heavy as has been done in the past, but would equip experts in different fields and delegate to them.
Lisa Adkins said her candidacy would seek to bring groups together and return us to our roots and values. Both candidates spoke about reaching out to segments in the community that have been overlooked in the past.
Speculation continues as to whether any third person would be announcing his or her intentions to join this race.
In the past, the Cobb County Republican Assembly has hosted candidate forums to give candidates in local races an opportunity to represent themselves to the activists who would be voting in the county convention to elect them. Expect the Cobb RAs to announce a similar forum in the weeks ahead. After forums, members of the Cobb RAs have the opportunity to endorse a candidate by a two-thirds majority, if they so choose.
Today we have a bittersweet announcement: Jeff Souther has been not only an amazing activist member of the Cobb RAs for the last several years, but also one of our key executive officers. Most recently, he has been serving as the Secretary of the Cobb RAs. But now Jeff has to step down to prepare for some new things in his life. He will continue to be a valued and appreciated member and activist. We know that all who have had the pleasure of working with Jeff have been grateful for him.
However, we are pleased to announce that the Cobb RA Executive Committee has elected Catherine Floam to fill in his role as Secretary moving forward. Catherine has a passionate vision for improving the Republican cause in Georgia. Formerly, she served as an officer of the Greater McLean Republican Women’s Club in Northern Virginia and as a volunteer for a number of campaigns and recently as a monitor and poll watcher for the 2020 recounts and senate runoff. Catherine also worked as the director of production for two political consulting and direct mail firms in Washington DC and as an HOA Vice-President. She currently is launching a small business and managing a rental property.
Catherine Floam
Catherine holds a BA from Loyola University Maryland. She has three children—a son who is a West Point grad and an officer in South Korea; another son who works in the film industry in Atlanta; and an 18-year-old daughter. Catherine enjoys reading, cooking, entertaining, playing tennis and meeting new people. Catherine and her husband, Andy, live in Marietta and attend StoneBridge Church.
Andy is on the bar in Georgia and Maryland and is a partner of a law firm based out of Maryland practicing patent law. Catherine’s oldest son is a West Point graduate and currently an officer in the Army serving in South Korea; her middle son works in the Atlanta film industry and lives in Smyrna; and her youngest daughter is a senior in high school with a customized hybrid homeschool education.They reside in Marietta in West Cobb.
We hope you’ll join us in welcoming and congratulating Catherine in the new role!
