NC GOP 2025 State Convention – Just Like the Last Six, Seven, or Eight! | Eastern NC Now

NC GOP 2025 State Convention – Just Like the Last Six, Seven, or Eight!

By: Ray Leary

I attended the 2025 NC GOP state convention again this year, June 5-8, 2025. I was not disappointed. There has been very little change in the make-up of these charades over the years I have attended. For the record, I only attended the Friday and Saturday business sessions and the Friday evening dinner.

The cost to attend this circus is beyond the means of most of the voters these orchestrations are intended to woo. The base price to attend the business sessions on Friday and Saturday is reasonable at $75.00. However, if one wishes to attend the breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and to hear a list of celebrity speakers, one must spring for an additional ~$400.00. And then you have motel expenses for two or three nights of $250.00 to $400.00.  And for most, 200-300 miles of travel to attend. It is not difficult to spend upwards of $1,000.00 to participate in all the weekend activities. This is not an event planned with grassroots voters in mind. The event is planned for those that have the means and who wish to gain something from the party, not those who wish to contribute to the party.

The lunches and evening dinners were highlighted with various speakers touting how well the GOP performed during the 2024 election cycle by again getting President Trump elected. Thunderous applause rang throughout the meals. No one, except the NC GOP Vice Chairman candidate, Mike Magnanti, mentioned the cold hard facts that the NC GOP lost most of the council of state seats to Democrats and one Supreme Court judgeship after a protracted fight over contested voter registrations. NC Republicans lost the Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction to the liberal wing of the Democrat party. The supermajority held by the Republicans in the NC House was lost by one or two seats.

And then on Saturday, utilizing weighted voting, the establishment candidates were elected to the Chair and Vice-Chair positions to lead the NC GOP for the next two years. Weighted voting allows all the delegates available to a county to be counted, although many delegates declined to show up and vote in person. One even has their vote counted if they were not elected at the county conventions to be a delegate. Thus, four or five of the counties with large delegations determine the outcome of the elections. There was one significant change to the method of voting for these offices—PAPER BALLOTS. The two previous conventions used electronic voting devices assigned to each delegate or voting by cell phone over the internet. At least they got this right. Now, all voting in federal, state, and local elections should be conducted with paper ballots.

Let’s look at the attendees. According to the records presented there were over 6,000 delegates allotted to the 100 NC counties. The live souls in attendance for the Friday afternoon business session was reported as ~1100. The Saturday business session swelled to over 1600. Beaufort County had 45 delegates that could have attended. 13 chose to take advantage of this opportunity to exercise the franchise.

Saturday is the day when votes are cast to accept or decline the proposed changes to the party platform and elect the NC GOP Chair and Vice-Chair. Naturally, these are of great priority to the people that desire to hold power for their personal gratification as opposed to those that want to do the most good for the most people. Government of, by, and for the people are a foreign concept to individuals who feed at the trough of the public purse.

Will I attend again? Probably. Will I fill the party coffers by attending all the fund-raising events and dinners priced at $100 - $150 per meal scheduled during the convention? NO.

One last note – Thom Tillis was a no-show.