Abigail Hope Darnell (formerly Abigail Hope Cochran) grew up in Whitfield County in northwest Georgia before marrying Nathaniel Darnell in the summer of 2020. She is the grateful mother of their first child Patience Hope Darnell, who was born in November of 2021. She is the eldest daughter among seven children belonging to Crystal Cochran and CPA Keith Cochran, and worked at his accounting firm for many years. She has also been heavily active in Georgia Right to Life, helping her family organize and run the northwest chapter of GRTL beginning in 2016. In 2019 she was elected as the Vice President of Georgia Right to Life by the state board, serving under Ricardo Davis, the President of that organization. She was re-elected to that position in August 2021. She served for five years as Secretary on the board of the L’Abri Symphony, a non-profit community orchestra in Dalton, Georgia, and has trained and volunteered with the Center for Bioethical Reform, doing campus outreach and street activism. In addition, she has served as a field reporter and correspondent for David Tulis’s radio show based in Chattanooga. Abigail served as 3rd Vice President originally in 2021, and was re-elected to that position at the GRA State Convention in December of 2021 for another term.
Jim Fernander was elected the 2nd Vice President of the GRA at the State Convention in December of 2021. Living in Douglasville, Jim has been active in the Republican Party in Georgia for many years.
Brant is the Chairman of the Coweta County Republican Party (CCRP) serving since March 2013. He previously served as 1st Vice Chairman of the CCRP from 2011 to 2013 and served as a delegate to the 2012 Republican National Convention.
Brant was born and raised in Georgia and has lived in Coweta County since childhood. Brant or “Five” (as his friends call him) has served as a volunteer in the campaigns of Gary Bauer, Saxby Chambliss, and Sonny Perdue. He also served as county campaign manager for Jeff Chapman and Max Wood in 2010.
In 2010, Brant was appointed to serve as Vice Chairman of the Newnan Urban Redevelopment Agency. In 2013, he was appointed Chairman of the agency.
In 2011, Brant was elected as 1st Vice Chair of the Coweta County Republican Party (CCRP). In late 2011, Brant worked closely with Mike Crane in Crane’s successful bid to win a special election to the state senate. Brant would go on to serve as a legislative aide to Senator Crane in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 sessions of the Georgia General Assembly. In April 2012, Brant was elected to represent the Third Congressional District of Georgia to the Republican National Convention in Tampa serving as the youngest delegate from Georgia.
Brant was elected as Chairman of the CCRP without opposition in March of 2013; and elected to the GAGOP State Committee on April 20, 2013. In March 2015, Brant was re-elected CCRP Chairman unopposed. Also in March, Brant successfully led the effort to stop a proposed rules change to the GAGOP rules that would have created greater obstacles to participation in the party process.
Brant served on the Resolutions Committee at the 2012 and 2013 GAGOP state conventions. He is a co-founder of GeorgiaCaucus.org and has written for zpolitics.com as well as other political websites. As a young Christian Conservative Brant has always striven to conduct himself in a manner that would be a credit to his Lord, his family, and his country.
Catherine Bernard has served as the lady junior NFRA National Director for Georgia, succeeding Debra Williams. In addition, Catherine has developed a reputation as a successful criminal defense attorney in Georgia. In 2012 she was elected as a delegate to the National Republican Convention. She has also been the Republican nominee for two State House races in urban DeKalb. She and her husband Eric reside in DeKalb County.
Nathaniel has served as the NFRA Director of the GRA since 2021, succeeding Ron Hooper in that position. The year before that, as the 3rd Vice President of the GRA and as the Chairman of the Cobb County Republican Assembly since 2017. He also was elected as the Vice Chair of Communications for the Cobb County Republican Party in 2019 and continued to serve in that capacity in 2020. He first started working in Georgia Republican politics in 1996, working for eight different Republican state legislators over the course of eight legislative sessions, including Tom Graves in his freshman year as a state representative, and Casey Cagle when he was still a minority-party state senator. He also served State Senator Mike Crane (R-Newnan), State Rep. Mitchell Kaye (R-Cobb), State Senator Billy Ray (R-Gwinnett), and others. He has served as a state committee member for the Georgia Republican Party in the 11th Congressional District for seven years, as the Executive Director of the Cobb County Republican Party for three years. Nathaniel holds a juris doctorate with Oak Brook College of Law and works as a licensed financial advisor and insurance professional in Georgia.
Alex attended Oglethorpe University and received a B.A. in Politics and attended Georgia State Law school for his Juris Doctor. While at Oglethorpe, he helped found the College Republicans in 2003. In 2009, he became involved in the DeKalb County Republican Party and DeKalb County Young Republicans serving as Secretary, Vice Chair and eventual two-term Chairman of the DeKalb County Young Republicans.
He has served within the DeKalb County Republican Party as an Executive Committee member, Senate District Chair, and General (Legal) Counsel, as well as being the Republican candidate for the Georgia State Senate in District 41 in 2010 against Democrat Steve Henson, losing but garnering approximately 43% of the vote.
Alex ran for Georgia GOP Chairman in 2013, 2015, and 2017 (receiving 40%, 45%, and 47% of the vote, respectively). He has also founded Advance the GOP, an informational effort to improve the Republican Party in Georgia by holding politicians accountable to the Republican principles that they claimed to support when they took office.
He received the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) President’s Award for Activism in 2017, and was also elected to serve as the Southern Regional Vice-President for the NFRA.
As his paying job, Alex practices law throughout Georgia, focusing on both personal injury and civil rights litigation, as well as representing businesses. He lives in Dunwoody, Georgia with his wife, Andrea.
The Georgians Ending Abortion coalition has grown: Now Apologia,End Abortion Now, and other groups are adding their strength to the effort to advance legislation in Georgia that would provide Equal Protection for all of the preborn.
Jeff Durbin with Apologia
The above video tells the tragic story about how legislation last year in Louisiana that would have saved the lives all of the preborn was thwarted—not by pro-aborts—but by the pseudo-prolife community in bed with the political Establishment. Some of those who contributed to thwarting that life-saving legislation were people and organizations from right here in Georgia. Now the battle is coming to Georgia. See the video to get a preview of what we can expect.
The GRA is committed to stand with our partners in the coming legislative session to protect the lives of all preborn babies.
We ask for your prayers and support in the effort. We would encourage your families, churches, and communities to help support the coming legislation.
As you prayerfully consider your end-of-the-year tax-deductible giving, we would recommend that you donate to one of our non-profit partner organizations in this effort. Although the GRA is not a 501(c)3, you can give to Georgia Right to Life, Apologia, and End Abortion Now— allorganizations working unapologetically to provide 100% Equal Protection to all the preborn with zeroeugenics! We know that they will put your donation dollars to good use.
One might be surprised that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is echoing our calls to see the Republican-controlled Georgia General Assembly go back to the drawing board and pass meaningful election integrity reform. Except that Raffensperger wants to run backwards in his recommended policy suggestions.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger
Specifically, the Secretary of State is urging the state legislature to put an end to runoff elections and instead adopt rank-choice voting. Since many of us are still skeptical that in an election system that he controls Raffensperger genuinely beat Congressman Jody Hice in the Republican Primary without a runoff, we understand why Raffensperger doesn’t like runoffs, but this is not the kind of election reform we had in mind. The Secretary of State also only narrowly won election to his position after a runoff with Democrat John Barrow in 2018.
However, rank-choice voting has demonstrated itself to be a disaster for small-government conservatives pretty much wherever it’s been tried around the country. If the greatest weakness of primaries and general elections is that they prey upon ignorance, ranked choice voting exacerbates that problem.
Sarah Palin & Senator Tom Cotton
It’s no coincidence that the most liberal states like California, Hawaii, and New York have pioneered rank choice voting. Former Governor Sarah Palin twice this year lost a Congressional race to a Democrat in Alaska’s rank choice voting system. “Ranked-choice voting is a scam to rig elections,” U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) tweeted. “60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican, but thanks to a convoluted process and ballot exhaustion—which disenfranchises voters—a Democrat ‘won.’”
Instead of passing any kind of rank choice system, the Georgia General Assembly should do what they should have done with the much derided S.B. 202. Namely:
First, they should get rid of all absentee drop boxes. Any persons who come in to submit a ballot prior to Election Day (if allowed at all) should only be able to submit such a ballot for themselves, and should have to show their photo I.D. to elections personnel to prove they are really only voting on their own behalf and that they personally are of a sound mind.
Rather than getting rid of absentee drop boxes, the state legislature under Speaker David Ralston and Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan‘s guidance actually increasedthe number of drop boxes—requiring one per county! Only the state of Texas has more counties than Georgia.
Second, they should get rid of the “QR-code” on the Dominion Voting machine ballot printouts. Anything in the digital elections system that could conceivably open up the system for possibly difficult to detect computer alterations should be avoided for obvious reasons. There are many other states that use the Dominion Voting system, but have opted to not use this part of their system. Why should we?
Honestly, we would not be heartbroken if Georgia got rid of the Dominion Voting system altogether. Whatever it was supposed to do to make elections more efficient or trustworthy has clearly failed. It now takes just as long, if not longer, to report outcomes, and now parties on both sides complain about treachery more than ever before.
Humorous satire from FreedomToons
Third, no county in Georgia should report their numbers from Election Day until all counties have a final tally ready to present simultaneously. This is a simple matter of “keeping” honest election boards honest (yes, we’re talking about you, Fulton & DeKalb).
Fourth, any window for early voting should be shrunk. The policy of Georgia elections should be to maximize the number of people who vote actually on Election Day.
Ideally, we should all vote only on Election Day. That’s why it’s called “Election Day” and not “Election Month.” Both the state and federal government should make Election Day a holiday to encourage all businesses to give their employees the day off to go vote. We should make it normative for people to only vote on Election Day.
Anyone who might be granted an exception to the rule of only voting on Election Day should have the burden of proof on them that they have a special situation that merits such an exception. (Even then, a regular citizen should be allowed to vote no more than a week early.) Serving in the military would be such an exception. Having a mental incapacity would definitely not.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Raffensperger wants large counties to open up more locations for early voting. That suggestion would only encourage more people to vote early rather than on Election Day. This is counterproductive because the whole point of election integrity reform is to increase the trustworthiness of the final reported election outcome, but longer windows for voting only provides cheaters with more opportunities to cheat and ballot harvest.
Seriously, you’d think Raffensperger was being fed these bad ideas from the Democrats themselves.
Magic: It’s all about misdirection!
Even so, this week Secretary of State Raffensperger has been conducting “random” ballot counts around the state in 137 counties to try to demonstrate that the current system can be trusted. Of course, no once suspects that the particular batches of ballots selected for counting were not hand-selected in advance specifically because those particular batches were safe from having any evidence of fraud. One has to wonder if this is little more than an elaborate magic show where the illusionist knows the trick to the art of magic is that “it’s all about misdirection!”
If you want greater election integrity and transparency, let your voice be heard! Contact your State House representatives with their information from this web site, and for the State Senate get their information at this web site. To contact the Secretary of State, go to this web site. If we don’t speak up, if YOU don’t speak up, nothing will change. You can also add your name to the petition below from our endorsed State Senator Colton Moore (R-District 53) to express your opposition to Raffensperger’s proposal for rank-choice voting.
The Georgia Republican Assembly was pleased to participate in the BLEXIT Christmas Party this past weekend, and show our support for the work of this movement of Black Americans who are Exiting the Democrat Party with its Big Government woke nonesense!
GRA NFRA Director Nathaniel Darnell & GRA 3rd Vice President Abigail Darnell with TurningPoint’s Brooke Robyck and Sheila Davis at the BLEXIT Christmas Party in downtown Atlanta.
Originally founded by Candace Owens, the BLEXIT organization in Georgia is run by a fantastic group of dedicated leaders, including Jay Andrews. We would encourage you to learn more about them!
The Georgia State House Republican Caucus came back to Atlanta a little bit smaller Monday morning. Before last week’s election, the Republican Caucus had been 103 members. But at least two seats (maybe three) were projected to have been lost last week, bringing the size down to no more than 101. One of those lost was GRA-endorsed State Representative Philip Singleton (R-Coweta), whom Speaker David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) had vengefully and deliberately thrown under the bus by arranging to redistrict him out of his district, apparently because Ralston would rather give more seats to the Democrats than allow a strong conservative to stay in office.
In fact, the House Republican Caucus has been slowly diminishing under Ralston’s leadership for the last six years. In 2020, Republicans lost five seats in the State House. In 2018, Republicans under David Ralston’s leadership lost nine seats. Not since the election of 2016, when President Donald Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton, have Republicans in the State House not lost seats in their caucus. That year they gained a modest two seats.
How the Republican control of the State House under Ralston has diminished over the last three elections.
During the wave of the T.E.A. Party movement in the first half of the 2010s, Republicans saw steady gains in Georgia and across the country. But as Republicans have failed to live up to the promises of reform made under that movement, Republican voters have become increasingly disillusioned.
Barry Fleming speaks to the caucus
97 of the House Republican Caucus members gathered in Atlanta to vote on who they would support to replace Ralston as Speaker of the Georgia State House. Both State Rep. Jon Burns (R-Newington) and Rep. Barry Fleming (R-Harlem) claimed they had been promised sufficient support by their fellow Republicans to win the election. But the vote was conducted by secret ballot without any way of knowing if someone would violate their pledge.
When the results were announced, members say it was reported that Jon Burns won the vote. However, both candidates agreed not to announce the final tally.
Jon Burns celebrates
Rep. Burns has served as the Majority Leader in the State House since 2015, and he was reported to be Ralston’s pick for his replacement. We hope that Rep. Burns will learn from the errors of his predecessor and allow legislation promoting Republican principles and possessing grassroots support to freely reach the House floor for a debate and vote. Continuing to go to war with conservatives in his own party will only lead to political suicide.
The errors of Mr. Ralston that we hope Mr. Burns learns to avoid are voluminous. Yet last week, the sycophants for Big Government Corporate Cronyism at Peach Pundit attacked us for celebrating Ralston stepping down as Speaker of the House, even accusing us of somehow being “jealous” of him for being so “successful.” That was funny.
Comic of Benedict Arnold, traitor of patriots in the War for Independence
To set the record straight: We’re as “jealous” of Ralston as George Washington was jealous of Benedict Arnold in the middle of the War for Independence. Ralston’s been the best player on the Democrat team. Think about it. No Democrat in the state legislature has blocked more Republican principle-led legislation over the last thirteen years than Ralston. No Democrat has passed more Big Government expansions than Ralston. No one in the GRA is jealous of Ralston’s success at promoting the Democrat agenda.
Time would fail us to recount all the things Ralston has done over the last decade to antagonize heroes within the Republican Party and block the advancement of Republican principles from our platform. Earlier this year he attacked our endorsed Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly on the House floor, and Greene really has been a heroine for our principles.
For years Speaker Ralston prevented the Constitutional Carry bill from reaching the floor for a vote, and he attacked former Republican State House Rep. Charles Gregory (R-Cobb) and then later Rep. Matt Gurtler (R-Tiger) and Rep. Colton Moore (R-Dade)(now elected to State Senate) for trying to advance that bill. (He recruited Burt Reeves to run against Gregory, and now Reeves’ district has flipped Democrat.) Only this year when Governor Brian Kemp thew his weight behind Constitutional Carry did Ralston finally relent and allow the bill to come forward for a vote.
During the pandemic, Ralston harassed fellow Republicans such as Rep. David Clark (R-Suwanee) to get tested, be contact traced, and wear a mask just to be able to perform the role they were elected to do on the House floor, even when they had no symptoms of any illness—the folly of which measures are only now being fully realized.
Herschel Walker
Speaker Ralston shoved down our throats legislation that many Republicans and conservatives had great alarms over (e.g., the recent “Mental Health Parity” bill). Meanwhile, he blocked legislation to enact real election integrity reform to prevent cheating, making it hard for those of us who have been volunteering at the polls to be able to catch all the ways Democrats may attempt to cheat in these elections. As a result, it is possible that because of David Ralston’s actions Herschel Walker could have been cheated out of a win in the U.S. Senate race. How can we motivate activists to push for a runoff when so many have doubts about election integrity?
But perhaps the worst of all, although Speaker David Ralston had promised before he was elected Speaker that he would allow one pro-life bill per year, for most of the thirteen years he was Speaker he blocked legislation that would have saved the lives of tens of thousands of preborn babies!
Former State Senator Mike Crane
Beyond that, he also twice blocked legislation that would have simply said we don’t have to pay for abortion murder with our tax dollars. For these alone, Ralston has blood on his hands before God. He has made himself an enemy of God, an enemy of the helpless (and God has harsh words in the Bible for those who pervert justice for the helpless), and an obstacle of heroes such as former State Senator Mike Crane (R-Coweta) (now 3rd Congressional District GA GOP Chairman) who bravely brought forward the legislation in 2012 and 2013 that would have permanently ended that tax subsidizing of abortion. (Governor Nathan Deal provided only a temporary solution.)
As Proverbs 29:2 says, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.” Ralston’s sickness ought to be a warning to others who act as he does that God is just, and just as the Scriptures tell us that God providentially brought sickness upon King Asa and King Herod of old, God sometimes even today brings sickness upon His enemies to stop them from furthering harm.
And we haven’t even brought up the criminal victims who never got their day in court because of the endless case postponements Ralston was able to get as an attorney for his clients while Speaker. As the AJC reported, “Ralston has tied up cases for clients charged with child molestation, child cruelty, assault, terroristic threats, drunk driving and other crimes.”
In short, David Ralston has been the worst thing in Georgia Republican politics over the last thirteen years. Let the newly elected Speaker Jon Burns take note and not repeat his evils.
