Departing Horry County GOP leader throws barb-filled goodbye at state party elders

An outgoing member of Horry County GOP’s leadership team is scorching members of the state party apparatus on her way out, accusing them of false allegiance to president Donald Trump and his supporters.

“They’re happy to pretend and say that they’re for making America great again, and they’re happy to fundraise off president Trump’s name and they’re happy to use him when it’s convenient,” executive committee chairwoman Tracy Diaz said Sept. 14 told right-wing radio host and county GOP member Chad Caton. “But they don’t stand for those things, nor do they like the people who do.”

Diaz, along with chairman Roger Slagle, vice chairman Jeremy Halpin, secretary Barbara Treacy and interim treasurer Angela King abruptly resigned effective Sept. 30, blaming months of infighting and a frayed relationship with the S.C. GOP.

Caton is a close political ally of Diaz’s. He appeared on stage with her last November at an event meant to garner support for her and other leaders. Former Trump national security adviser Gen .Michael Flynn also attended.

State party officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Friday, but told The Sun News earlier in the week

It’s been a tumultuous 18-month tenure for Diaz and other top elected officials within the county party, who ran on a platform built around Trump-era policies and politics.

Last September, the county’s executive committee used a parliamentary procedure to take an official vote calling on Slagle, Halpin and Diaz to resign. Opponents based their claims on a lawsuit filed against the party in August 2021. In that suit, Matthew McDaniel of Clemson alleged that Caton, a party activist and member of the executive committee, and others assaulted him at a Greenville GOP convention in early June.

McDaniel also alleges that following the incident at the convention, Slagle, Halpin and Diaz, on behalf of the Horry County GOP, penned and posted a statement that defamed him. An attorney for McDaniel said he’d be willing to drop the suit if Slagle and his associates stepped down.

It was the latest controversy for the party in recent months, following a censure of South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Drew McKissick, a rocky reorganization process last spring and accusations that past leaders misspent party funds.

I tried to forge relationships with the people in Columbia, and I was very hopeful there would be a change in attitude and we’d be able to work together and maybe bridge a gap that hadn’t existed before,” Diaz said on Caton’s show. “Sadly, we weren’t able to do that and quite frankly, I really don’t know why. There’s nothing that they can point to for a reason not to work with us other than they didn’t like us.”

A Sept. 10 meeting of the state GOP’s executive committee hastened the resignations of Diaz and Slage. Both were condemned by name for a failed attempt to stall the 2021 convention.

“A compromise was offered to suspend the motion if the specific members apologized, but the compromise was retracted after the members did not apologize,” S.C. GOP spokeswoman Claire Brady The Sun News. “The South Carolina Republican Party is continuing our focus on the November election and beating Democrats up and down the ballot in Horry County and across the state.”

Diaz said in the days since announcing her resignation, she’s heard from people as far away as Nebraska and New Hampshire who have expressed similar dismay over schisms within their own state parties.

She also fielded a phone call from Flynn.

“You have a state party weaponized against its own, that’s what really bothers me,” Diaz said. “They don’t like us because we represent populism and freedom and change, and they are so happy with things the way things are that even if this country go Marxist, they’ll still get paid.”

State Democratic Party chairman Trav Robertson said the Horry County rift indicates a larger problem for the GOP.

This is a direct result of the old, long-time Republican born and raised in Conway and the new ones that have come in and support Donald Trump, and don’t have a problem with trying to overthrow the government,” he said. “I think it’s going to result in an overarching identity crisis that overtakes the GOP.”

This story was originally published September 17, 2022 at 5:00 AM.