Republicans choose new leader, ousting Eck

In a rebuke of party leadership that saw the local Republican Party whirling in a spiral of decline, members of the Chester County Republican Committee have chosen a new chairman and officers in an attempt to stem the tide that has seen the county turn a deep shade of purple rather than its former bright red.

On Tuesday, members of the GOP committee voted overwhelmingly to replace Dr. Gordon Eck, a social conservative who had served for two years, with Dr. Raffi Terzian, a physician from the county’s most populated municipality and the party’s one-time stronghold.

Terzian, a physician who comes from an ethnic Armenian immigrant family and whose father was born in Cuba and his mother in Romania, defeated Eck by a vote of 295 to 53. The committee also supported Terzian’s hand-picked slate of officers by acclamation.

Terzian, head of the Tredyffrin Republican Committee, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

In a statement issued early Wednesday, Eck sounded philosophical about his loss and hopeful for the future of the party he had led since 2020.

“I close with an admonition from Mark Twain: ‘Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest,’” he wrote.

“Serving as the chairman of the Republican Committee of Chester County has been one of the greatest honors of my life. I am grateful to the committee for giving me the opportunity to do so.

“I am equally pleased to be leaving the committee in a far better state than when I inherited it,” he said. “We are now positioned to take back the U.S. 6th Congressional (District) seat, the 44th state Senate seat, and the majority of the state House seats.

“Although I will not be directly involved, I look forward to supporting our wonderful slate of candidates and pray for their success this fall,” Eck said.

Two of the county’s highestprofile Republicans — county Commissioner Michelle Kichline and Congressional candidate Guy Ciarrocchi — expressed praise for Terzian, who hails from their home turf of Tredyffrin.

“I am excited to work with Dr. Terzian to let our citizens get a fresh look at what the Republican Party has to offer by recruiting and electing Republicans that

our focused on the core needs of Chester county,” said Kichline, the county’s highest-ranking elected official. “We need diversity of elected officials in our county and that includes diversity of party. Philadelphia is an example of what happens when you have a one-party monopoly led by Democrats.

“We are at a time in our county, and in our country, where people are hurting financially,” she said, echoing the national Republican Party’s message of economic woes in the Biden era. “Businesses have closed, crime is rising. In addition, many people (especially our children) are suffering mentally. Many Chester County residents are struggling to make ends meet because of the soaring costs of gas and food.

“I have seen Dr. Terzian’s plan for the future of the party and it is something that will re-energize our committee and show the county what our party has to offer,” Kichline said.

Ciarrocchi, who is making his first run for elective office after having served as a member of former U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach’s staff and for the Philadelphia Archdiocese, said Eck should face no blame for the party’s decline in recent years.

“Dr. Eck inherited a party that was battered and broke,” he said. “He served tirelessly with integrity and dedication. We can now build on the stability he provided. Raffi Terzian is committed to unifying and growing our party to affect positive change that our community and nation so urgently need.

“I urge all Republicans — and former Republicans to come back — to join us in this mission,” said Ciarrocchi.

Other party stalwarts, however, were not so kind to Eck in discussing his legacy as a leader.

“The Chester County GOP needs to move in a completely new direction,” said one longtime Republican activist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to address questions about Eck’s term “We’ve lost too many races over the last few years. Donald Trump destroyed the Republican brand in the suburbs.

“Gordon Eck is a good person but was not able to help us recover from the losses that started after Trump was elected,” the source said. “Gordon struggled to raise money and fund our races. This needs to change if Republicans hope to start winning again in Chester County.”

Another longtime county Republican said that Eck’s shift towards a more socially conservative base had ultimately not played well and that Terzian’s approach would be more amenable to suburban moderate voters.

“I am told that he will get us back to the longtime trend of a Chester County GOP base of center-right, ‘Chamber of Commerce’ Republicans, rather than acting as if we are Chester County, South Carolina rather than Chester County, Pennsylvania,” the source said.

Terzian’s experience in keeping the party competitive against new numbers that favor Democrats should work to his advantage as well, the source said.

“From what I can tell he’s been dealt a bad hand in Tredyffrin” — where Democrats outnumber Republicans by some 2,400 voters — “but he has kept the party going and kept it competitive,” the source said. “Otherwise, Tredyffrin would be turning into Lower Merion and the Republican Party would be going the way of the Dodo bird.”

Terzian’s challenge will now be to restart the GOP’s energy in county politics.

In May 2020, the registration numbers among county voters showed more Democrats than Republicans for the first time since the Civil War. County row office seats in the courthouse, including the majority of county commissioners, are now in Democratic hands, part of a “blue wave” that crashed over the county the previous year.

The county, once among the most reliable of Republican strongholds, has now voted for Democratic candidates for president, governor and Congress, and has filled seats on local municipal and school boards in numbers previously unheard of — including in Terzian’s backyard, where Democrats control a 7-0 margin on the township’s board of supervisors.

As of June 27, the voter registration edge held by Democrats still hovers around 5,000, although it has dipped since earlier in the year. The split is 41.6 Democrat, 40.2 Republican, and 18 percent independent or third party.

Terzian has also inherited a slate of candidates for office that some see as problematic, starting with the party’s candidate for governor, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who has espoused extreme positions on issues from the 2020 presidential election (he says that former President Donald Trump had his re-election stolen from him) and abortion (he favors outlawing the procedure in all cases).

The party’s candidates for the U.S. Congress and state seats in the Senate and House include only three incumbents and six candidates who are running for office for the first time. The party, which once boasted a war chest of more than $1.24 million, has raised only $118,902 this year, according to state figures.

According to his biography, Terzian has been a resident of Chester County for almost two decades and is married with four children.

He is a board-certified emergency physician with almost 30 years of clinical and administrative experience, and holds a master’s degree in public health and has experience in occupational health. He works as an executive with Health Advocate in Plymouth Meeting.

Eck