Walla Walla — Walla Walla native Lance Henderson has announced he is running to take over leadership of the state Republican Party.
Henderson said this morning he hopes to succeed retiring state GOP chairman Susan Hutchison, who announced Tuesday she is resigning the post she has held since 2012.
The Republican State Committee, which consists of 117 members from the state’s 39 counties, will choose Hutchinson’s successor when it meets Jan. 20 in Moses Lake. Caleb Heimlich, current executive director of the state party, is also running and a third candidate, Monique Trudnowski, a small-business owner in Tacoma, has also announced she is seeking the post, Heimlich said today.
Hemlich said the salary for the position ranges between $80,000 to $105,000 a year.
“I’m excited, but it’s also a short time frame,” Henderson said about the race. He said he is “calling and emailing” delegates who will be going to the meeting to talk to them in advance about his background and vision for the state GOP’s future.
The role of the state chair is to organize the party’s election campaign plans, plan strategy, hire staff and conduct fundraising efforts.
If he wins the post, Henderson said his priorities in the coming year will be to re-elect the incumbent Republican candidates in the U.S. House of Representatives, including Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and work to have Dino Rossi elected to the 8th Congressional District seat to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert.
At the state level, Henderson said the goals will be to retake the majority in the state House of Representatives, which the GOP is within one seat of winning, and regain the majority in the state Senate.
In his biography, Henderson said he has worked for nearly three decades as a “strategic and communications counsel to business and political leaders in the public affairs, public policy and campaign arenas in the United States.”
In 2014, Henderson led in-state operations for the Republican Governors Association’s successful $5.1 million effort to re-elect Maine Governor Paul LePage.
In September 2015 he was hired by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey as chief of staff. The hiring drew criticism from the state’s Democratic Party and Henderson resigned the $99,500-a-year position a month later.
He served as executive director of the Washington State Republican Party in 1994 when the GOP made midterm gains in Congress with its ‘Contract with America” national campaign.
