| John Wahl | |
| Office: | Chair of the Alabama Republican Party |
| Term Start: | February 27, 2021 |
| Predecessor: | Terry Lathan |
| Birth Place: | Athens, Alabama, U.S. |
| Party: | Republican |
John Wahl (born 1986)[1] [2] is an American political strategist and butterfly breeder who is the incumbent chair of the Alabama Republican Party, serving since 2021. He is also a vice chair of the Republican National Committee, representing its southern division since 2023. Wahl is the youngest chair of a state Republican party in the United States.
Wahl was born in Athens, Alabama.[3] He is the brother of Noah Wahl, a fellow political strategist and the former chair of the Limestone County Republican Party. As a teenager, Wahl was a door-to-door campaigner for the Republican Party. Wahl later ran WT&S Consulting, a political consulting and polling firm associated with the Alabama Republican Party.[4] He was also the chair of Stop the Small Business Tax PAC, a political action committee in Athens,[5] as well as a founding member of the Freedom Alliance PAC.[6]
By trade, Wahl is a butterfly breeder and operates a farm in western Limestone County, a business he started when he was 16. Butterflies bred on Wahl's farm have supplied various exhibits nationally, including the Huntsville Botanical Garden and the Bronx Zoo, with over 40,000 butterflies annually.[7] Wahl has also served on the board of the International Butterfly Breeders Association. Wahl's farm has been featured by various media outlets seeking to cover the niche industry of butterfly farming, including Mental Floss[8] and the Answers in Genesis foundation.[9] Wahl describes the industry as one of the "most beautiful" job opportunities, which he contrasts with his work in politics.
In 2010, Wahl served as director of communications for Roy Moore's gubernatioral campaign. When Moore sought to regain his seat as Chief Justice of Alabama in 2012, Wahl worked as the grassroots coordinator for that campaign. In the 2012 election cycle, Wahl was selected to serve as field director for the Alabama Republican Party. Two years later, he was elected to the party's state executive committee. Following the 2016 election cycle, Wahl was chosen as the vice chairman for the Alabama Republican Party's division for the 5th congressional district. In 2019, Wahl was elected as senior vice chairman of the party at the executive committee's winter meeting. He defeated Bill Harris from Autauga County for the seat.[10]
During the 2020 United States presidential election, Wahl was one of Alabama's nine Electoral College representatives. He was also a member of Tommy Tuberville's transition team, as Tuberville was elected to the U.S. Senate, representing Alabama, that year.[11] When Terry Lathan announced that she would not seek another term as chair of the Alabama Republican Party, Wahl ran to replace her in 2021, and was unopposed in seeking the seat. Wahl said that, as party chair, he would focus on low taxes, secure borders and elections, as well as a strong military for his main agenda points. He was elected by acclamation at the party's winter meeting on February 27, 2021.[12] [13]
During his first term as party chair, Wahl oversaw the Alabama Republican Party's launching of a new minority outreach team,[14] as well as the "Operation Restore America" campaign, a group of volunteers assembled to assist with national and other out-of-state elections in 2021 and 2022, including the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election, which was won by Republican Glenn Youngkin.[15] [16] Wahl also managed the Republican Party's involvement in the 2022 Alabama elections, including a debate over congressional redistricting for the 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Alabama. The conflict eventually led to a Supreme Court case, Allen v. Milligan, in which Republicans were initially granted a stay for 2022, but the district map was overturned in 2023.[17] [18] [19] [20] Wahl has also been an advocate for closed primaries[21] (which the party approved in August 2022),[22] school choice, and adoption reform in Alabama.[23] By 2023, Wahl had helped raise over $2.8 million for the Alabama Republican Party.[24]
In fall 2022, the opinion column of journalist Kyle Whitmire published a series of stories reporting on Wahl's Anabaptist extended family members, who objected to voter ID on religious grounds, including calling facial recognition programs "the mark of the beast". Wahl has supported voter ID laws in his position as chair of the Alabama Republican Party.[25] On October 3, Whitmire reported in his opinion column that, while voting in the 2022 elections, Wahl had used a press secretary card as photo ID; Whitmire charged that Wahl had created the ID himself under the direction of Jim Zeigler and the office of the State Auditor of Alabama.[26] A Limestone County poll worker who inspected Wahl's ID was later fired after raising concerns about its validity, though the ID had been approved by the county probate judge.[27] The controversy attracted national attention, including reporting by Newsweek, after John Merrill, the Secretary of State of Alabama, said that Wahl's card from the State Auditor office was not a valid photo ID.[28] In an interview with Phil Williams, Wahl reiterated that the ID had been approved by Limestone County's probate judge and accused Whitmire of dragging his family members into the controversy solely for their Anabaptist beliefs, saying Whitmire was "just being cruel".[29]
In January 2023, Wahl was selected as a vice chair for the Republican National Committee, leading its southern division.[30] Wahl said that he was looking forward to working on a "fresh vision" for the Republican Party in the 2024 election cycle.[31] At the Alabama Republican Party's 2023 winter meeting, he was re-elected as chair for another two-year term. Wahl faced no opposition and was again elected by acclamation.[32] In September 2023, Wahl was profiled in a series of NPR articles highlighting the youngest Republican (Wahl himself) and Democratic (Anderson Clayton of North Carolina) state party chairs in the United States. Wahl said that his goals for the future of the Alabama Republican Party would include attracting Black voters from Alabama's Black Belt region, as well as younger voters.
Wahl resides in Limestone County, Alabama, where his butterfly farm is located.