A committee of prominent Republican leaders in Hillsborough County, formed as a supplement to the floundering county GOP organization, has begun fundraising for a voter registration drive.
Leaders of the organization are campaign finance maven Nancy Watkins, engineering firm owner Hung Mai and veteran local party activist and political operative April Schiff, all three to some extent alienated from the current leadership of the Hillsborough Republican Party.
They formed the organization, the Hillsborough Leadership Council, last year, saying they intended to raise money to boost local Republican candidates, but didn’t start fundraising in earnest.
They have now formed an associated group, a non-profit corporation called the Hillsborough Leadership Policy Council, which has begun fundraising including sending an email to local Republicans last week.
The non-profit was formed to comply with state laws regulating voter registration groups that aren’t affiliated with a political party, said Watkins.