Shelby County Republican Party Chair Joan Reynolds spoke at the River Region Republican Club meeting at the Farmer’s Market Café on Tuesday. The Mighty Alabama Strike Force, which she heads, will begin making trips on Sunday to Georgia to help football legend Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator, win the November 8 general election. Walker is challenging Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock.
Reynolds said that the idea for the Mighty Alabama Strike Force began when then-Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-AL06) noted that the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) needed help with a congressional race in North Carolina and asked Reynolds for her help.
“My job was to recruit volunteers and train them,” Reynolds said. “The volunteers were all from in the area. When I got back home, I said I need to get two or three people that can help me. I ended up spending two or three weeks in Durham. I realized then how important volunteers are.”
“It started under the Bush Administration,” Reynolds explained of her involvement in out-of-state congressional campaigns. “That is what I have been doing for the last 14 years.”
Reynolds said she took her first volunteers from Alabama to a Senate race in Arkansas, where they campaigned in Jonesboro.
“In 2012, I was asked to go to Sioux City, Iowa,” to help the Mitt Romney campaign, Reynolds explained. “There was a religious factor there as they (Iowa voters) were not going to vote for a Mormon.”
Reynolds is married to Alabama’s Republican National Committeeman Paul Reynolds.
“Paul put together a busload,” Reynolds said. “It was a small used school bus, and they went to Sioux City. Coming back, they ran into a problem when they broke down. After that, I realized we needed some money.”
“My volunteers did not mind staying in homes, but they would rather stay in hotels,” Reynolds said. “In 2014, we went to Indiana and campaigned for Bill Cassidy. We went to Tennessee and campaigned for Marsha Blackburn. We won both of those.”
“In 2016, Donald Trump decided to run,” Reynolds said. “He was such a forceful figure that it was easy to get volunteers. It was also easy to raise money.”
“We spend a week, or we won’t go,” Reynolds said of the duration of the trips. “We were asked to go to Florida in 2020.”
“In 2021, I was asked by one of my donors to see if we can go to Virginia to go to campaign for Glenn Youngkin,” Reynolds said. “That was the first time we got involved in a governor’s race.”
“That was the first time that we had to fly,” Reynolds said. “It was right after we were getting over COVID, and the economy was just opening up. I contacted every bus company in Alabama, and it was cheaper to fly.”
Youngkin won his election.
“He said it was so important that we came and actually talked to people in the Commonwealth,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds asked for help from Republicans across Alabama.
“We cannot do it without funding, and we cannot do it without volunteers,” Reynolds said. “We do not charge them (the volunteers) for their rooms or their transportation. There is no administrative fee, and I don’t get one red cent out of it, and that is ok because I don’t do for profit.”
Reynolds said that volunteering is demanding.
“If you cannot walk three miles, then don’t go,” Reynolds said. “You have to be able to use an iPhone, a google phone, or an android in order to be able to download the maps that we use.”
“We do not go to Democrat homes,” Reynolds said. “We will run into some where people have moved and changed homes, but we go to Republican homes. We are strictly about getting out the Republican vote. We have got to get the turnout. The turnout (in the primaries) has been awful. Even in Shelby County, we were at a measly 18 percent.”
“Lindy Blanchard is our inhouse Captain,” from the Montgomery area, Reynolds said. “She is going to Savannah.”
Pat Wilson with the Montgomery Republican Women announced that Terri Hasdorff will speak to the group on Tuesday, October 26, about her book, Running into the Fire.
“I still need poll watchers to make sure that our election is strong as it can be,” Wilson said. “I was disgusted when I looked at our voter turnout last time. Less than 15% of our voters cared enough about our county and state to come out and vote. We need to get people involved.”
Greg Pool is the Chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Party.
State Rep. Charlotte Meadows (R-Montgomery) and Republican House District 69 candidate Karla Knight Maddox also spoke to the group asking for their efforts to get out the vote in the Montgomery area.
Maddox thanked the River Region Republicans for their help and said she had been working hard traveling around House District 69, campaigning and meeting people.
Pool said the latest polling by the Alabama Republican Party has Maddox moving into an evenly split with the Democratic incumbent.
Meadows said, “If Karla and I get elected, that will mean a Republican majority on our (Montgomery County) legislative delegation.”
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