Category: GRA Leadership
Banks Wise, Assistant Treasurer

Banks Wise, Assistant Treasurer

As the Assistant Treasurer, Banks Wise provides support to the Treasurer in managing the finances of the organization. He has been involved in the Republican Party as a volunteer activist for over a decade, first getting involved in the presidential races of Congressman Ron Paul from Texas. He resides in Cherokee County and works in an accounting firm. He has previously worked as a campaign manager for several successful State House races and worked as those Republican legislators’ Chief of Staff and political advisor.

Nate Porter, Treasurer

Nate Porter, Treasurer

Nathan Porter was elected to serve as the Treasurer for the GRA after James B. Jordan resigned from the position mid-term. Nathan was later re-elected as the GRA Treasurer at the GRA State Convention in December of 2021. Nate was formerly the founding leader of the Fulton chapter of the GRA, and was elected as Chairman of the 6th Congressional District GOP Committee in 2021 as well. He runs a bookkeeping firm in Alpharetta.

Denise Burns, Assistant Secretary

Denise Burns, Assistant Secretary

Denise Burns was elected as the Assistant Secretary of the GRA at the State Convention in December of 2021. She has been a GRA member in good standing for many years, and was also first elected the 14th Congressional District GA GOP Chairman in May of 2021. She was reelected to that position in 2023. She lives in the Walker County / Catoosa County area, has been a good long-term friend of Secretary Joanna Hildreth, and she assists Joanna with the official correspondence on behalf of the GRA.

Abigail Darnel, 3rd Vice President

Abigail Darnel, 3rd Vice President

Abigail is a Christian, homeschool graduate who is passionate about reforming the laws of GA to reflect “the laws of nature and of nature’s God”. She feels called to help make America constitutional again and sees effective political activism and community involvement as part of Christian ministry: a natural outflow of loving one’s neighbor and Jesus’ commission to teach all nations his commands.

She helped lead and revitalize the Northwest chapter of Georgia Right to Life in 2016. She has trained and volunteered with the Center for Bio-ethical Reform doing pro-life campus outreach at leftist colleges and doing pro-life street activism.

She served for five years as Secretary of the L’Abri Symphony, a non-profit community orchestra in Dalton, GA. For seven years she worked as a bookkeeper for her father’s accounting firm. In 2020 Abigail worked as a writer and correspondent for The Tulis Report, a conservative talk radio show in Chattanooga, TN and she continues to volunteer occasionally as a citizen journalist who is committed to countering cultural Marxism with truthful narratives of current events. She is currently in her second year as an insurance agent working alongside her husband Nathaniel.

She has served as the Vice President of Georgia Right to Life since 2019 and has served as the 3rd Vice President of the Georgia Republican Assembly, since 2021.

She is a wife and mother of two small children and is enthusiastic about the vital role of mothers in building culture and preserving conservative principles for the next generation.

Brant Frost V, 1st Vice President

Brant Frost V, 1st Vice President

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, NFRA Director from Georgia

Catherine Bernard, NFRA Director from Georgia

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 Darnell, NFRA Director from Georgia

Nathaniel Darnell, NFRA Director from Georgia

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 in 2020. 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 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 Johnson, GRA President

Alex Johnson, GRA President

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.