In a vote of party activists throughout South Carolina this weekend, Drew McKissick was re-elected state Republican chairman with a resounding 68 percent of the vote.
What made McKissick’s triumph national news was his nearest competitor in the four-candidate race for the party helm: Lin Wood, a Georgia-based attorney who has tried for months to jumpstart the claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Among those who came to the Palmetto State to campaign for Wood were fellow fraud-chargers attorney Sydney Powell, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, and “My Pillow”magnate Mike Lindell.
In McKissick’s corner, however, was a supporter far more formidable: Trump himself, who, as the chairman told us soon after his re-election, “called me four times since February, endorsed me three times, and then congratulated me.”
Trump first spoke to him, McKissick recalled, “three days before the impeachment trial [in the U.S. Senate] in February. He called to thank me for the vote [of the Republican state committee] to censure [Republican Rep.] Tom Rice, who voted for impeachment in the House.”
When the former president asked if there was anything he could do for McKissick, the chairman said, “I asked for his endorsement for my re-election and he said he’d be happy to.”
Trump subsequently sent a hand-written note with his strong endorsement to McKissick.
After Wood got in the race and began questioning the veracity of Trump’s blessing for McKissick, the chairman told Newsmax, “the president and I had two other conversations and he reiterated his endorsement. I’d say he really meant it.”
For all of the national publicity Wood has received questioning the outcome of the ’20 election, McKissick added, “the president asked me ‘Who’s this attorney guy?’”
McKissick pointed out that Wood “gave thousands of dollars to Barack Obama when he first ran for president [2008], gave ten thousands of dollars to Democrats in Georgia who were endorsed by Planned Parenthood, and last voted in a Republican primary in 2004. That’s before a lot of college Republicans I know were born!”
“I’m glad I beat him so soundly,” added McKissick, “He’s a carpetbagging RINO [Republican In Name Only]. And I was proud to have the president’s support.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
