Mass. GOP ousts veteran Republican power player Ron Kaufman from RNC post

BURLINGTON, Massachusetts — Massachusetts Republicans have ousted the general chair of the Republican National Convention from his post as a national committeeman.

Ron Kaufman, a former treasurer for the Republican National Committee, was upset by Brad Wyatt, a longtime activist with Tea Party roots, in a narrow 37-35 vote taken at a Republican State Committee meeting on Saturday in the Boston suburb. Kaufman will continue serving as national committeeman through the July convention in Milwaukee. He will remain chair of the gathering unless he is removed by RNC Chair Michael Whatley, according to a person familiar with the party’s processes.

“I’m still national committeeman until the gavel comes down” on the last night of the convention, Kaufman said in a brief interview after the vote.

In rejecting Kaufman’s bid for another term, Massachusetts GOP activists ousted a veteran Republican power player and lobbyist who has long divided his time between his native Quincy and Washington, D.C. Kaufman advised Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential bid and made his name in politics working for George H.W. Bush.

“He is ‘Mr. RNC,’” said Janet Fogarty, Kaufman’s counterpart on the national committee, who was easily reelected to her post on Saturday. “He’s very powerful on a national level, and he’s the go-to guy for guidance for other states. … He brings home the bacon. And he’s always been so humble. Many don’t realize what he does behind the scenes for our state party.”

A fixture at the RNC, Kaufman declined in 2023 to seek reelection as treasurer. He had also said he wasn’t going to seek another term as committeeman. But in a speech before the vote, Kaufman told State Committee members that he was persuaded to run for reelection by the “team down in Mar-a-Lago” — a nod to former President Donald Trump.

Kaufman is also the chair of Republicans’ 2028 presidential convention. Asked what the loss of his RNC seat would mean for that, Kaufman said: “We’ll see.”

His defeat is also a blow to Amy Carnevale, the party’s pro-Trump chair, who on Saturday easily beat back an effort by a more conservative faction of this deeply divided state party to oust her from her leadership post months before her term is set to expire. Under Carnevale and Kaufman’s leadership, Massachusetts was one of the many state parties that changed its delegate selection rules to benefit Trump in the Republican presidential primary. Carnevale has been working to rebuild the state party — and reingratiate it with the RNC — after infighting under the former chair cost Republicans their last two statewide offices and left the party hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

“Ron has had a lot of institutional knowledge and expertise that he's brought to bear on behalf of Massachusetts Republicans over the decades,” Carnevale said in an interview. Wyatt’s election, she added, signals a “new chapter” for the state GOP.

Wyatt was an ardent supporter of former Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential bid. He helped organize the slate of his supporters that surprised Mitt Romney on his home turf by defeating his backers for some of the delegate slots the former Massachusetts governor won in the state’s presidential primary. Wyatt told POLITICO he voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 and is supporting him again this fall.

Kelly Garrity contributed to this report.