Updated at 12:35 p.m.
At least two candidates are vying to replace David Sunderland as chair of the Vermont Republican Party.
Michael Donohue, who moved with his family to Shelburne in 2016, announced his bid in an email Wednesday. Deb Billado of Essex Junction is also putting her hat in the ring.
Party members will gather at the Capitol Plaza Hotel & Conference Center in Montpelier on November 4 to elect leadership positions, including state committee chair, vice chair, secretary and treasurer.
Sunderland, who’s led the party since 2013, said he isn’t running for reelection because he needs to devote more time to his job and his family.
Billado previously served as chair of the Chittenden County Republicans. Her opponent, Donohue, currently holds that post.
While relatively unknown among Vermont Republicans, Donohue says he has been active in national party politics for decades.
Donohue, who could not immediately be reached, wrote in his email announcement that he’s running to “enhance our county efforts, bridge factional divides and assert a professional communications strategy into our advocacy.”
He is currently a self-employed communications and public affairs consultant. Before that, he was communications director for the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Va., and spent about a decade doing media relations and communications work for the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Restaurant Association and the American Chemistry Council.
Earlier in his career, he served as deputy press secretary for Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) first presidential campaign and, in 1994, worked as a senior coordinator for the Republican National Committee.
“The instability and division of politics today is like nothing I’ve seen in my career. The politics of Washington, D.C., that I witnessed has reached a level of vitriol and disfunction [sic] that seems unsustainable,” Donohue noted in his email. “The president [Donald Trump] has faced an unparalleled level of media hostility and political obstruction, and division even within our congressional majorities. But we must focus on Vermont and our communities — because the best way to help our national party and all our leaders is to demonstrate unity, common purpose, and success here in the Green Mountain State.”
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“The president [Donald Trump] has faced an unparalleled level of media hostility and political obstruction” Yeah and all of it is well deserved criticism.
Who cares, the GOP are ba bunch of losers and babies anyway!
As a Vermonter who tends to vote Republican, and a satisfied Phil Scott supporter, I’d much rather see the VT GOP focus — entirely — on the “VT” end of the deal, and leave “our national party” to burn in a dumpster, like God intended.
Speak for the woodchucks, not the beltway.
How is it possible for any sain person to bad mouth the GOP at this point after it has been proven that the Democrats have been playing the dirtiest politics in American history. Bad mouth Trump all you want but Im sure that when all the cards are laid on the table the Clintons and their cronies at the DNC will all be behind bars or hung for treason and President Trump will be as renowned as Washington as true American heros. Its time to pull your heads out of the sand and wake up to the evil that Democrats have been up to.
Almost no coverage of Ms. Billado. Is Seven Days a sexist paper, or is this skimpy article just a recycled presser?
Hmmm..
What a pathetic showing…good to see the future of the Vermont GOP is in the geriatric ward. And if you’re going to a GOP meeting, you most likely don’t know what geriatric means. It means “relating to old people”..because no young person with an ounce of common sense, decency and compassion would be interested in joining the GOP.
You don’t need to look at the national level to see how fumbling and obtuse the GOP is. Just look at the large, adult fail-son that is their only paid staffer.
If you are young and a Republican you have no heart, if you are over thirty and are a Democrat you have no brain. Mt. Salem must still be a child.