Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Lawrence Tabas has a candidate for state party leader.
Ted Christian, who lives in Bucks County and worked as state director for Trump’s 2016 campaign, announced his intention to run for the position on Friday at Manhattan’s annual political elegance festival known as the Pennsylvania Society.
Minutes later, Paul Martino, a Bucks County venture capitalist who bankrolled a 2021 group of mostly conservative suburban school board members, told the same Young Republicans event that he would support Christian, 56, by investing in his campaign $100,000.
A campaign for state party chairman is quite infrequent, but Martino said supporting Christian is the reason he is re-entering the political scene. Christian’s interest in the position has become known among GOP committee members in recent months.
“There has to be a generational change in the party,” Martino said. “Trump, even though he is many years old, has already attacked, and I feel that our current leadership with a ‘wait your turn’ philosophy will never get us there.”
Tabas, 71, a longtime general counsel for the Philadelphia-based Republican Party, has served as party chairman since 2019 and has not said whether he will seek re-election. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Tabas was the only candidate nominated in 2019 and took over as president unanimously amid a scandal that left the party reeling. He replaced former Chester County Executive Val DiGiorgio, who resigned following sexual harassment allegations.
Despite massive losses, his party did not try to oust him after the 2022 midterms. The chairman is elected by approximately 350 members of the state commission. More people could join, especially if Tabas decides not to run.
“Most members of the state committee will wait to see what Lawrence Tabas wants to do,” said Charlie Gerow, a state committee member and longtime GOP strategist. “And if he decides he doesn’t want to run for re-election, I think there will be other significant candidates.”
For all the hand-wringing over the future of the Democratic Party after November’s losses, the Republican Party appears ready for a leadership referendum. This is partly due to the election cycle.
Although Tabas will govern this year, the Democratic state chairman, Sen. Sharif Street, will not be eligible for re-election until 2026, and Democrats have given no indication of an imminent leadership change.
The GOP won Pennsylvania this year, flipping the state in Trump’s favor, sending Republican Dave McCormick to the Senate and adding two GOP members of Congress to the House.
At the local state government level, however, Democrats largely held on. Christian would forge a more direct bond with Trump as he prepares for a second presidency.
“How the hell does Trump win by three points and you win every rank-and-file house and don’t win back a single state house seat?” Martino said. “It’s a failure of leadership.”
Christian, a former director of the New Jersey Republican State Committee, also served on Trump’s first transition team and worked on his 2020 campaign as a senior adviser.
Martino, a father in the Central Bucks School District, became a high-profile political player in 2021 when he spent half a million dollars to support a group of mostly Republican school board members, a move he made in opposition to school closures due to Covid-19.
He poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns for Republican candidates in the 2023 Bucks County school board race when Democrats took control of the board.
