MAGA Patriot Party born in San Antonio
A new political party that launched this week has a tie to San Antonio.
The MAGA Patriot Party National Committee filed a statement of organization with the Federal Election Commission on Monday. The party listed an office building at La Cantera as its official address.
A Florida man, James Davis, is listed as the custodian of records, treasurer and designated agent for the new party. He filed the paperwork on behalf of a group of disaffected Trump supporters who intend to show the Republican Party no longer represents them.
“There’s a lot of violent groups out there, a lot of different groups calling for militias and those kind of things,” Davis said Tuesday. “I understand the anger, but that’s not our country. Our country gives us a political way to speak and that’s what we decided we were going to harness.”
Davis is a 57-year-old municipal worker and former Marine from Punta Gorda, north of Fort Myers. He started a Facebook group called The Patriots Shall Rise for Trump supporters to share their frustrations concerning the presidential election. The group was kicked off Facebook and its members moved to other social networks.
The party has plans for its candidates to run in contests from the U.S. Senate to mayoral races. Davis plans to run against U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-fla., in 2024.
They’re targeting Republicans they feel “turned their backs” on Trump’s base.
“We’re not much different to the Republican Party,” Davis said. “Except we’re going to hold true to the platform Trump ran on and what people supported.”
The party’s platform supports former President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies and energy independence, Davis said. Its supporters began splitting from the Republican Party after the election because their representatives failed to investigate Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud.
The MAGA Patriot Party is one of several similarly named parties founded in recent weeks.
Trump reportedly floated the idea of starting a new
“Patriot Party” as he feuded with Republican leaders in the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. He later decided against pursuing the breakaway party, according to the New York Times.
On Monday, Trump’s official campaign committee filed a notice with the FEC, repudiating one “Patriot Party” founded by a Georgia man that claimed to be fundraising for the committee.
The MAGA Patriot Party established in San Antonio made the same claim in its FEC filing. A spokesperson for Trump distanced the former president from that group as well.
“We are not supportive of this effort, have nothing to do with it and only know about it through public reporting,” said Jason Miller.
The disavowal from Trump’s campaign was a “disappointment,” Davis said. His party had to name which PAC they were fundraising for when they filed the statement of organization. Trump’s re-election was the only committee they wanted to raise money for.
If the Trump campaign requests that the MAGA Patriot Party drop its connection, Davis will do so. He plans to add five additional candidate PACS to an updated FEC filing on Thursday. But the party will not waver in its support for Trump.
“We’re going to support him regardless, whether we’re fundraising for him, whether he’s running for a party like ours, or he’s running for the GOP. We’re going to support him,” Davis said.
The MAGA Patriot Party registered in San Antonio because Davis has a business partner in the city, whom he declined to name.
Texans represent the largest chunk of the party’s membership, Davis noted, pegging the total number at 9,400 people. The party soon plans to merge with another Patriot Party more than twice its size.
It’s too early to tell whether the new parties will have much of an effect, according to Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. But their existence gives disaffected Republicans a place to go — especially if Trump creates his own.
The Bexar County Republican Party said it was unaware of the new party.