Melissa Beaudoin, former Vice-Chairman of the 11th District GOP Committee, won election as Chairman at the 11th District Convention Saturday.
Also on the ballot were races for State Central Committee (SCC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) Delegate. The races for Elector and Alternate Delegate were already settled, and Manga Anantatmula [1], who was uncontested, became the official Republican nominee for Congress at a previous party meeting.
For SCC, the top vote-getters were Richard McCarty, Mauricio Tamargo, and Mike Ginsberg. Also, Juanita Balenger, Marta Delacre, and Pawan Singh were elected as RNC Delegates.
The 11th District was the first district in Virginia to hold its election using Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). This system ensures majority support for the winners, while also allowing voters to only vote once and leave – thereby eliminating one of the biggest complaints about conventions: the length when multiple ballots are required. By all accounts, the RCV system worked well, as the voting process is easy to explain to delegates, and while it may delay the tallying of the votes for a spell, delegates aren’t held hostage as they wait to hear results.
The campaign to amend the RPV Party Plan to allow for RCV, and then to bring it to life in the 1tth District, was spear-headed by Richard McCarty, who as noted above, won re-election to SCC.
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Beaudoin’s win for Chairman is notable not only for the news of an incoming District Chairman, but also because of whom she defeated: disgraced former SCC Member Fredy Burgos.
Burgos was elected to the SCC from the 11th District in 2016 and immediately got into hot water for his anti-Muslim and anti-Catholic rants. He was finally removed from SCC with a 2/3rds vote after making comments that were largely considered anti-Semetic (coincidentally, against Ginsberg, who just won an SCC seat). During the run-up to his removal from SCC, he also referred to RPV Chairman John Whitbeck as “John Whitebeck”.
Since his removal, Burgos doubled down on his hate-filled screeds [2]:
– Denouncing legal immigration as “demographic genocide” and saying if we had to had legal immigrants, they should “mostly” be European;
– Posting at length about an upcoming “Civil War II”, which would be spurned by white opposition to diversity and multiculturalism;
– Obsessing on the need for “masculinity”, declaring RPV to be “devoid of manliness” controlled by “globohomo swamp elites”;
– Creepily posting about “sexual ethos” and decrying “flaccid” decision-making, while declaring that women are attracted to “Alfa men.”
Electing Beaudoin not only elevates a sensible leader to SCC, but also avoids a waddling disaster going back to the Committee. It also nips in the bud efforts by Burgos, Roland Smith (who lost his SCC race), and others around Virginia to reduce the make-up of Women’s clubs, Young Republicans, and College Republicans on SCC.
The official final weighted vote tally was:
Beaudoin: 324 votes
Burgos: 265 votes
That amounts to a 55%-45% victory for Beaudoin, which is sizable. However, it is still concerning that Burgos came as close as he did, especially given that the raw, unweighted vote tallies were even closer (though Beaudoin won that, too). With a new Chairman in Beaudoin and two new elected SCC Representatives, the 11th District will look to turn a page from all of that as it looks ahead to November and into 2021.