Leaked Texts Reveal Plan To Promote Specific County Chair
More drama in Collin County
In a series of screenshots, Collin County Republican Party (CCRP) Precinct Chairs and the CCRP Communication Chair discuss strategy to promote Ellen Loveless as County Chair over Shelby Williams.
UPDATE: Full screenshot release at the bottom of the article.
Update….again (4/29): Ellen Loveless has submitted her reply in the pinned comments at the bottom of the article.
This evening, the CCRP plans to meet in order to fill the current vacancy in the office of the county chair left by Abraham George when he stepped down to run for HD89.
Screenshots we received show a group discussion where CCRP precinct chairs and the communication chair, Evan Altemus, talk about the chair race and strategy to help Ellen Loveless.
Additionally, an offer seems to be made to give Altemus (Communications Chair) the Vice Chairman position.
An entire plan seems to be concocted to run Altemus as interim chair in order to help out Loveless.
We’re not familiar with county bylaws, but it does seem unfair for the Communications Director to use his position to promote or push a specific candidate. He also seems to admit it’s unfair here:
We reached out to Evan Altemus for comment via phone and text. Altemus denies having a specific preference for a candidate, although he admits he did vote for Ellen Loveless. Altemus also told us he would be fine with either candidate winning and says he called Shelby Williams last night to offer advice and strategy for his race.
Altemus also gave us the following quote to include:
I was an idiot and newer to helping with politics, need to choose my wording better, but I am truly impartial to either one and just want what’s best for the group. But yes stupid wording.
- Evan Altemus CCRP Communications Director
We reached out to Williams, who confirmed the call but denied that Altemus offered him any campaign advice. Williams told us that Altemus only called to pitch his role as potential interim chair and float ideas for party operations. Williams did confirm that Altemus told him he had no preference.
How often are these sorts of backroom deals and discussions happening behind the scenes in local politics? All the time! Most of the endorsements made this election cycle were simply based on deals and relationships, not ideology or values.
But hey, welcome to politics.
A full copy of the group chat thread can be viewed here:
Hi reader! This is Ellen Loveless (really, it is!) and I am finally responding since Shelby is, once again, sending this false narrative out in his email blasts. It's important to note that the texts in the story were cherry picked by Shelby Williams and he is the one who sent the texts to Current Revolt to plant the story and create this false narrative. Also, I learned that this text group was created in April 2023; well before either candidate was running for Chair. This group chat included supporters of mine and of Shelby's, so the conversation was not "hidden" or a "conspiracy". I have also learned that theses texts sent Shelby sent to Current Revolt were only a portion of a two day conversation and these texts do not tell the full story of what they were discussing. This "story" broke on March 8th at 4:42pm. There was no need for it to be written as it has no merit. Let me tell you why: This all has to do with an Interim Chair election that was held on March 8th. I thought I would run for Interim Chair when I made it to the runoff. Why not? I am running for the position so why would I not run for interim? Shelby, however, made it difficult by spreading around that it would be "damaging to the party if we ran for interim chair". I thought that was odd since we were both running for Chair. However, Shelby and his supporters successfully spread that narrative around. During this time between the primary and the interim election, I learned of Evan's intent to run. I brought this to Shelby's attention on March 7th and said I am not in favor of supporting Evan in this bid (at the time I did not tell Shelby Evan's name) Did you read that? I am the one who told Shelby of this on Thursday March 7th. Evan called Shelby later on Thursday and then Shelby and I spoke and agreed that neither of us would support Even for Interim Chair.
Between the evening of March 5th and the morning of March 8th, it became apparent to me that I needed to allow a "neutral third party" to lead during the runoff per Shelby's insistence due to the successful spread of the narrative. (I think it was because he thought he would lose the interim race, but that is just speculation on my part.) I called Shelby on Friday morning, March 8th, to tell him I would not run for Interim Chair and that I had asked Howard Powers to run per his request of a neutral third party. Shelby and I spoke hours BEFORE he received the text thread (apparent by the timestamp on the texts) and then proceeded to send this to Current Revolt and his longtime friend who wrote the story. If he was really concerned about what is best for our party, why was his first response to send the "story" to Current Revolt? Why not call me, the general counsel of the party, or anyone in the thread? Why go straight to CR? Of course we know why. He was not happy he was in a Runoff with a woman who had zero name recognition 85 days before the primary and he is a second-term city councilman. It seemed he was frustrated that my message resonates with voters and my campaign built steam. So instead of having real conversations about issues and let voters decide based on our merits, he attempted to embarrass me and, I believe, coerce me to drop out of the race. (More on that, too...)
I filed to run on December 11th (that's another story you should know - ask me). The next day, Shelby called to introduce himself. We had a friendly conversation and at the conclusion I said, "we are going to run a clean race and become the example of how a primary should be run!" he agreed. Sadly, that has not been my experience. This retread of a false narrative is simply an attempt to discredit me. It's too bad, we could have engaged in healthy conversations that elevate the Republican Party and promote the principles of why Republicans should be elected in every race across this Collin County during this critical election year. We could and should be talking policy and ideas! That was my hope! Instead this race has devolved into false, empty attacks with zero conversation about my ideas to strengthen our party and walk toward Victory together in November!
I have a vision of a strong, relevant Collin County Republican Party! I plan to create a strong message about who Republicans are and why to vote Republican! I have a plan to spread the message far and wide and we will experience VICTORY in November! Will you join me in my vision of spreading a positive message? Please see my Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ellenloveless4ccgopchair/
My website: https://ellenloveless.com/
And an article from last week that highlights me: https://dallasexpress.com/metroplex/love-war-amongst-republican-candidates/
Please reach out with any questions: ellen@ellenloveless.com or 214-476-2567
Vote Ellen Loveless for Collin County Republican Party Chair in the May 28th Runoff Election!
May God Bless you and May God Bless Collin County!
Ellen Loveless
Speaking of being unaware of back room deals in local politics, are you actually unaware that Shelby Williams and recently resigned CCGOP Party Chair John Myers conspired to try to sneak Shelby in as the ONLY candidate on the ballot? After the party had the election last fall to replace Abraham George (following his own very-welcomed resignation), John Myers won and we all coalesced behind him and his commitment to run the party strongly and fairly for the CCGOP Primary elections in March, the local municipal elections in May, and then the November general elections.
Unfortunately, John later made the decision to not run after all, but instead of informing the Executive Committee (all the Precinct Chairs) of that decision, he secretly only told Shelby Williams and asked Shelby to seek the office in secret. Shelby literally asked a Precinct Chair who learned of this on the final day of filing to "not tell anyone" so that Shelby could be an uncontested hand-picked replacement as the Party Chair to satisfy the "establishment" which John Myers was a strong soldier for and representative of. Fortunately, that Precinct Chair quickly spread the word and that was how Howard Powers and Ellen Loveless were even able to rush in on the last day to register to run against Shelby for the Chair position.
So, this was clearly very unethical behavior by both John Myers and Shelby Williams - and why the majority of Precinct Chairs do not want Shelby as our next CCGOP Chair. The sad thing is the voting public was not made aware of these unethical practices by Shelby Williams because both Howard and Ellen chose to take the high road in campaigning (unlike what we saw from the likes of Matt Shaheen and Jeff Leach) and did not go to the press (like you) with the story. I wish they had, because it is simply the truth, not mud slinging. Hope you will write a story on this. I will be happy to be quoted in it: John Donovan, Precinct Chair 137.