Montgomery County’s political parties are reorganizing for the next four years.
Local Republicans have elected one of the youngest GOP chairs in the state, Jim Johnson, the only person to file for the seat vacated by one-term chairman Dan Guard. Democrats re-elected Virginia Servies for a second term as their party’s chair.
Johnson, 31, wants to get the next generation of voters involved in politics by starting a high school group in partnership with Wabash College’s student Republicans club.
“You hear people say, ‘We can’t do this forever,’ but you don’t want to just flood it with young people because there’s a lot of wisdom in the people who have been around. A lot of wisdom and knowledge that we as young people need to be taking advantage of,” Johnson said.
“They’ve been around the party for a long time and we need them, and I for one appreciate them,” he added.
Johnson was serving as committeeman for the Crawfordsville 6 precinct, encompassing the Milligan Park area, when he wanted to become more involved in the party.
Covering boards and commissions as a reporter for the Journal Review before becoming director of Fusion 54 gave him a crash course in the structure of local government.
“It’s almost mind-boggling all the responsibilities that our elected officials have and, yeah, they get a little check for the work they do, but it’s not near enough because they all do so much,” Johnson said.
Chairmen have the power to appoint members to vacant committeeman seats and organize caucuses to fill vacancies in elected offices.
Both chairs are looking to fill committee seats in some of the county’s 27 precincts. Along with Johnson’s old seat, Republicans need a new vice committeeman in Coal Creek Township.
The seat was held by Wade Bennett, who is being appointed as committeeman of his home Madison Township. Former seatholder April Johnson was removed by the party’s district committee last month for publicly supporting an independent candidate in November’s election.
Democrats currently have eight precinct vacancies to fill. Parties have the ability to appoint someone from outside the precinct if no one steps up to the role.
Servies said Democrats are gearing up for next year’s elections and plan to offer training for people wanting to be a candidate.
“We’re starting to ask people to think about running for office,” Servies said.
Attention surrounding last year’s presidential election trickled down to the local party. Servies said she spoke to 15-20 people interested in working the polls, as the party works to raise its profile in the Republican-dominated county.
Like members of the GOP, Democrats plan to make up for lost social opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic, Servies said.
“I still hear lots of people say, ‘I didn’t even know we had Democrats.’”
