Virgin Islands Republican Chairman Gordon Ackley will resign effective the election and qualification of a successor at a special meeting of the party’s State Committee on May 3, according to a news release from the party’s executive director, Dennis Lennox, on Monday.
Ackley announced his resignation to party faithful in an email Friday, citing the need to leave the territory to care for his father.
The special meeting to elect a new chairman is scheduled for noon on May 3 at The Westin, Frenchman’s Reef on St. Thomas. Any interested Republican who meets eligibility requirements under party rules is eligible to be nominated and elected by the State Committee, the release stated, before going on to deliver a statement from Ackley, who touted the “unprecedented attention” the territory received from GOP presidential candidates this year, among other achievements.
“I have spent the last eight years fighting the good fight to rebuild the Republican Party and create the alternative political party that our fellow Virgin Islanders deserve,” said Ackley, who often pressed the candidates or their surrogates who stumped in the territory on their dedication to appointing conservative justices to federal judgeships.
“It has been an honor and privilege to lead the movement. First as a 2016 candidate for Congress that so threatened the failed one-party rule that Democrats kept me off the ballot,” he said, referencing when he sued the V.I. Elections System after he was designated a write-in candidate on the November ballot, “and then since 2020 working with the Republican National Committee to reconstitute the territorial party after a decade of nonexistence,” said Ackley
“I am immensely proud of the unique opportunity we had earlier this year to elevate the voice of the Virgin Islands in the 2024 presidential election. Our territory saw unprecedented attention from eight candidates who sought the Republican nomination. That’s never happened before — on either side of the aisle,” said Ackley, who often touted the $20,000 fee he said that each of them paid to qualify for the USVI ballot, greatly boosting the party’s coffers.
“We also secured key commitments from candidates and campaigns, including the appointment of Republicans to the important federal positions of U.S. attorney and U.S. marshal and a conservative, rule-of-law judge to the U.S. District Court,” said Ackley, who in November also survived an attempted ouster by party brass who disagreed with moving the party’s caucus to Feb. 8, well ahead of Super Tuesday on March 5, which they said resulted in penalties for the USVI GOP. The local party nominated former President Donald Trump.
“It is time for me to pass the torch, especially as medical complications with my aging father will require me to spend most of the next year or so outside the islands. I simply cannot in good conscious remain as chairman. The party deserves a chairman with the time for the job,” Ackley said in Monday’s statement.
“I conclude my time as chairman with the territorial Republican Party in its strongest position in years. My successor as elected by the State Committee will assume the chairmanship with sufficient cash-on-hand to support the Republican ticket in November and plant the seeds for continued growth,” he said.
