Montgomery County GOP Seeks Revival in 'Progress Over Platitude'
Montgomery County Republican Party Chair Reardon Sullivan believes his party is finally finding its footing again — and that the key to revival in Maryland’s bluest county lies not in national slogans or grievances, but in pragmatic local problem-solving.
When I spoke with Sullivan on Sunday, the day after the county GOP’s annual convention, he was still decompressing from the logistics of running a political gathering in a county where Republicans make up barely one in six registered voters. “You never know until it actually goes off,” he said, laughing about the usual last-minute audio failures and a speaker who arrived late. “But that’s what makes life interesting.”
That sense of calm persistence runs through Sullivan’s approach to rebuilding the local party. A mechanical engineer by trade and a self-described problem-solver, he sees leadership as a technical challenge as well as a political one. “When I first got involved — maybe 2018, 2019 — the meetings were dour,” he recalled. “There was a change in the guard after that. We started using technology, we changed the tone, and I helped spearhead that. We can’t just talk amongst ourselves anymore.”
Sullivan credits that internal overhaul with reviving morale among what he calls Montgomery County’s “quiet Republicans” — people who lean conservative but often stay silent for social or professional reasons. “A lot of folks here are closet Republicans,” he said. “They feel they have to either register as Democrats or just keep quiet to get along. Those are the people who are voting with their feet and leaving.”
He cites voter registration data as proof of the problem. Over the past twelve years, the number of registered Republican voters in Montgomery County fell by about 20,000 while Democrats grew by more than 57,000. “That’s during both Obama and Trump,” he noted. “We have to convince people there’s still a shot here to change the trajectory — or they’ll just change their location.”
Part of that strategy, Sullivan said, involves reaching younger voters who were largely absent from the GOP convention. “We need to do a better job,” he admitted. “Republicans tend to be working, raising families, paying mortgages — but we have to start talking to young people about things that actually affect them, like housing, safety, and opportunity.” He pointed to conservative student movements such as Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA as examples of youth engagement models that could work locally.
Despite the constant national headlines surrounding President Donald Trump, Sullivan said the relative quiet about Trump at the convention was deliberate. “He’s not on the ballot locally,” Sullivan said. “I’m trying to get candidates to focus on things like proper policing and education — things that affect people at the kitchen table. Democrats here are still running against Trump. But people are bored of it. They want solutions.” He described his local message as “progress over platitude,” a catchphrase that sums up his effort to steer the party back toward governance and away from grievance.
That pragmatic streak extends to his local candidate-recruitment philosophy. Sullivan confirmed that more Republicans will file for County Council and Board of Education races before the February 2026 deadline, but he prefers a targeted approach rather than a symbolic one. “You try to pick out where the Democratic candidates are the weakest and you geotarget on those folks. I'm not interested in putting people on the ballot just to poke somebody in the eye. I want a candidate who can win it.”
Sullivan’s emphasis on building a credible slate was evident at the convention, where local candidates presented themselves as service-minded professionals focused on local issues rather than ideology, and congressional candidates weaved local issues like schools and crime into their campaign missions.
Marine Corps veteran Chris Burnett, now running in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, framed his campaign around “accountability, transparency, and integrity.” He said two decades in uniform taught him to value efficiency and clear purpose, and he outlined three broad priorities — prosperity through lower taxes and lighter regulation, peace through strong national defense, and protection through firm support for law enforcement and effective immigration enforcement. Burnett described his family’s struggles navigating Montgomery County Public Schools’ systems and expressed support for opt-out policies, greater transparency on books used in the classroom, and more conservative values guiding curriculum development.
MCGOP Chair Sullivan welcomes Maryland’s 6th Congressional District candidate Chris Burnett.
Gubernatorial hopeful John Myrick, a longtime Harford County deputy and federal intelligence officer, stressed competence over partisanship. Myrick’s remarks focused on bringing conservative values to state government, and he said he would rein in spending, bring common sense and good judgment back to Annapolis, and refocus Maryland government to better serve its citizens through accountability and transparency. Comparing Maryland’s $67 billion budget with Pennsylvania’s smaller $47.6 billion plan, he argued the state spends too much for too little. Myrick called for revisiting the costly “Blueprint for Maryland’s Future” education plan and said he would redirect lottery proceeds back to schools and public safety. He said crime is out of control in Maryland and he would increase enforcement capabilities through better fiscal policy.
Closer to home, Ricky Mui — a Navy veteran and small-business owner seeking a County Council seat in District 3 — mixed humor with populism, urging Republicans to “be a little brave” in public and help rebuild the party’s visibility by discussing local issues with neighbors. He promised to focus on basic quality-of-life issues, from affordability to keeping families “happy in Montgomery County.”
While party ideology took a backseat to local issues in most candidate speeches, Burnett’s opponent for the 6th District GOP nomination, perennial candidate Robin Ficker, took several Trump victory laps with classic bombastic flair, touting the President’s record on immigration, the economy, international affairs and more. If elected, he promised that Donald Trump would have a strong ally in Western Maryland.
Notably, with the exception of Ficker, the candidates hardly invoked Donald Trump or national partisan battles — an omission that echoed Sullivan’s strategy of steering the GOP’s message back to Montgomery County’s tangible problems. Together, their speeches reinforced his view that the party’s future depends on local credibility and candidates who talk about schools, safety, and taxes instead of relitigating national politics.
Sullivan knows firsthand how steep the climb can be. When he ran for County Executive in 2022, he raised just over $129,000 against an incumbent Democrat, Marc Elrich, with a $1.9 million war chest and still managed to capture a quarter of the vote. “I’m not saying never,” he said when asked if he might run again, “but I’d need someone to come to me with a PAC and real funding. I’m an engineer, not a politician.”
That engineering mindset colors much of what he says about county government. In his day job, Sullivan runs WFT Engineering, a Gaithersburg firm that designs mechanical, electrical, and fire-protection systems for hospitals, laboratories, and civic facilities. He tends to see fiscal policy as an optimization problem. “The old political wrangling wastes taxpayer money,” he said. “Engineers identify problems and fix them.”
That ethos underpins the county GOP’s current ballot initiative to cap government spending, which he said is “about one-third complete” in its signature collection. “People ask how to lower their taxes,” he said. “It’s simple: stop the spending.” Critics, he acknowledged, warn that a cap could hurt schools or social services, but he insists it merely limits total outlays and forces the council to prioritize. “They have to make tough decisions,” he said. “If you read the verbiage, it clearly says that it just puts a cap on spending. How the money is spent is determined by the county council and county executive.”
Sullivan said public reaction has been largely positive. He also believes millions of dollars in savings would be realized through better fiscal management, noting that his team downloaded a public checkbook file from the county’s website and found thousands of line items with no vendor names attached. When they requested clarification, they were denied. “When people hear that, they say, ‘I want to know where my money's going,’” Sullivan says.
His technocratic sensibility also shapes how he talks about infrastructure and public health — particularly Montgomery County Public Schools’ ongoing mold and ventilation problems. “There’s money to fix the schools,” Sullivan said. “We’re just spending it on the wrong priorities. Do we spend $80 million for bike lanes, or do we use it to build two or three new school buildings?” He also argues that the county could save millions by adopting audit and automation tools similar to those Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has used to streamline bureaucracy. “We could do that here,” he said. “Use technology to make government efficient.”
Sullivan’s remarks circle back to the same theme: efficiency, reasonableness, and a return to problem-solving over politics. “As an engineer, I’m trained to fix things,” he said. “The political world doesn’t serve taxpayers well when it’s just about scoring points.” He estimates that of Montgomery County’s 680,000 registered voters, only a few hundred “influencers” effectively determine local outcomes — a small but powerful circle he believes could be disrupted by what he calls “reasonable people talking to other reasonable people.”
Still, he acknowledges that the county’s demographics and culture present steep challenges. “There’s a 30,000-vote block that’s far-progressive and votes that way no matter what,” he said. “It might even be higher now. But there are a lot of middle-ground people out there who just need a clear, common-sense message.”
For Sullivan, that message is simple: less ideology, more results. “We want to do the right thing for the people,” he said. “We don’t have to lockstep with anybody. We just need to make sense.”
Editor’s Note: This report includes content from an interview conducted by Montgonion publisher Glenn Feldman on October 13, 2025, one day after the Montgomery County Republican Party’s annual convention. The conversation covered the GOP’s evolving strategy, its local electoral outlook, and Sullivan’s philosophy for government reform.
