RALEIGH — The North Carolina Republican Party’s annual state convention will select a chair and vice chair in Greenville.
Current chairman Michael Whatley, who was elected in 2019 and led the party through the 2020 election, is running unopposed for a second term. The party selects leaders every two years.
In the race for vice chair, Miriam Chu opted not to run for a second term, with Fayetteville’s Susan Mills and Sanford’s Sherry-Lynn Womack running for the party’s No. 2 position.
Mills is a longtime activist, served as the party’s vice chair in 1997 and has held other party roles, including as the leader of a state Republican women’s organization. She is a public school teacher in Sampson County and served as a 2020 Electoral College elector.
Womack is the wife of Jim Womack, a former Lee County commissioner who made unsuccessful runs in 2017 against then-chairman Robin Hayes and in 2019 to Whatley. She currently sits on the Lee County Board of Education and is a retired Army lieutenant colonel.
She generated protests after she attended part of the Jan. 6 protest in Washington, with some in the county calling on her to resign from the board.
Womack told WRAL, “I did not participate in any violent activities nor do I condone the behaviors of some protesters who swarmed into the Capitol. I condemn all acts of violence and threats to government officials that took place.”
