The Georgia Hour, episode 99: Women Banned from Leadership? Frost Family Revenge, Rigged Convention Secrets

Salleigh Grubbs, GA GOP’s new 1st Vice Chair, sparks out­rage by claim­ing women can’t win state offices, prompt­ing a fiery response from Demo­c­ra­t­ic guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Keisha Lance Bot­toms, who vows to “prove them wrong” in 2026. The Frost fam­i­ly, led by Brant Frost, alleged­ly orches­trat­ed a two-year revenge plot against David Cross after a con­ven­tion loss, with Brant boast­ing about con­trol­ling micro­phones and com­mit­tees to rig the GA GOP con­ven­tion, deny­ing del­e­gates’ rights to speak or demand paper ballots—despite 63% of Repub­li­cans and Trump sup­port­ing them. Del­e­gates, blocked from par­tic­i­pat­ing, are urged to dis­pute con­ven­tion charges for breached con­tracts. Alex John­son, GRA leader, faces pres­sure to address the fall­out. Spec­u­la­tion swirls about Katie Frost eye­ing the GA GOP chair role, while Salleigh is deemed unfit, and Kan­diss Taylor’s grass­roots betray­al back­fires. A fed­er­al appeals court revives a Catoosa Coun­ty law­suit, empow­er­ing far-right groups to block main­stream GOP can­di­dates, threat­en­ing bal­lot access statewide. Will this GOP infight­ing reshape Georgia’s polit­i­cal future?

The con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing Salleigh Grubbs, the new­ly installed First Vice Chair of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty (GA GOP), stems from her state­ment that she doesn’t fore­see a female gov­er­nor or sen­a­tor in Geor­gia, which has been wide­ly crit­i­cized as dis­mis­sive of women’s polit­i­cal poten­tial. This remark, report­ed by the Atlanta Jour­nal-Con­sti­tu­tion, drew a sharp response from for­mer Atlanta May­or Keisha Lance Bot­toms, a Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date for gov­er­nor in 2026, who declared on X, “The Geor­gia GOP and @1stVCGAGOP can keep on under­es­ti­mat­ing women. We’ll prove them wrong in Novem­ber 2026.” Bot­toms’ can­di­da­cy is framed as a chal­lenge to both Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and the GA GOP’s appar­ent skep­ti­cism toward female lead­er­ship, test­ing the poten­cy of an anti-Trump mes­sage in a state that nar­row­ly sup­port­ed him in 2024.

The inter­nal dynam­ics of the GA GOP reveal deep­er ten­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly involv­ing the Frost fam­i­ly and the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Assem­bly (GRA). David Cross defeat­ed Brant Frost for a GA GOP lead­er­ship role two years ago, and the Frosts, promi­nent GRA fig­ures, are described as orches­trat­ing a cal­cu­lat­ed response. Brant Frost, a for­mer GA GOP Sec­ond Vice Chair­man and cur­rent GRA First Vice Pres­i­dent, open­ly boast­ed about con­trol­ling the recent GA GOP con­ven­tion, stat­ing on X that his team secured micro­phones and com­mit­tee lead­er­ship to ensure their agen­da pre­vailed. He cred­it­ed GRA mem­ber Suzi Voyles, appoint­ed as a com­mit­tee chair by GA GOP Chair­man Josh McK­oon, for enabling this con­trol, admit­ting they allowed lim­it­ed oppo­si­tion points of order but main­tained dom­i­nance. Frost’s unapolo­getic stance—“I do not apol­o­gize for being bet­ter at politics”—highlights a strate­gic effort to out­ma­neu­ver grass­roots del­e­gates, par­tic­u­lar­ly those advo­cat­ing for elec­tion integri­ty mea­sures like paper bal­lots, which 63% of Repub­li­cans and Don­ald Trump report­ed­ly sup­port.

The con­ven­tion itself is mired in con­tro­ver­sy, with alle­ga­tions of del­e­gate sup­pres­sion and rule vio­la­tions. Del­e­gates report­ed­ly faced threats of removal or arrest for attempt­ing to raise points of order, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing the use of elec­tron­ic “click­ers” for vot­ing instead of paper bal­lots. Crit­ics argue that the lack of trans­paren­cy in vote count­ing and data man­age­ment under­mines the convention’s legit­i­ma­cy. Some del­e­gates are explor­ing their rights to dis­pute con­ven­tion reg­is­tra­tion fees, assert­ing that they were denied the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ful­ly par­tic­i­pate as promised. While not legal advice, the claim is that pur­chas­ing a con­ven­tion tick­et con­sti­tutes a con­tract, enti­tling del­e­gates to fair par­tic­i­pa­tion unless explic­it­ly stat­ed oth­er­wise.

The GRA, under Chair­man Alex John­son, ini­tial­ly cel­e­brat­ed the convention’s suc­cess but now faces pres­sure to reassess its stance amid these alle­ga­tions. Johnson’s role in endors­ing the convention’s out­comes, includ­ing the con­trol exert­ed by Frost and Voyles, puts him at a cross­roads as grass­roots mem­bers demand account­abil­i­ty.

Spec­u­la­tion about future GA GOP lead­er­ship sug­gests that Katie Frost, Brant Frost’s sis­ter and a GRA mem­ber who chaired the convention’s Nom­i­na­tions Com­mit­tee, is being groomed as a poten­tial suc­ces­sor to Josh McK­oon. Salleigh Grubbs, despite her cur­rent role, is seen as unlike­ly to ascend to chair, with sources sug­gest­ing she lacks the nec­es­sary influ­ence and may “stand aside” for Katie Frost.

Addi­tion­al polit­i­cal devel­op­ments include advice against State Sen­a­tor Greg Dolezal run­ning for lieu­tenant gov­er­nor, with sug­ges­tions he remain in his cur­rent role or seek anoth­er lead­er­ship posi­tion. Kan­diss Tay­lor, a for­mer guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date, is report­ed­ly strug­gling after align­ing with estab­lish­ment fig­ures like McK­oon, Voyles, and Grubbs, find­ing lit­tle sup­port from them amid her chal­lenges. A female doc­tor has emerged as a can­di­date for Dis­trict 1 rep­re­sen­ta­tive, sig­nal­ing a crowd­ed field for upcom­ing races.

Final­ly, a fed­er­al appeals court has revived a law­suit in Catoosa Coun­ty, allow­ing a chal­lenge to pre­vent four main­stream Repub­li­cans from run­ning as GOP can­di­dates. This deci­sion is a par­tial vic­to­ry for far-right groups seek­ing to con­trol bal­lot access, a con­tentious issue that could prompt state law­mak­ers to shift approval author­i­ty to the leg­is­la­ture if they per­ceive threats to their own bal­lot eli­gi­bil­i­ty.

• Salleigh Grubbs, the installed 1st vice chair of the GA GOP, comes out to say that women can­not hold a State office. The feel­ing we got is that Women need not apply. The for­mer Atlanta may­or Keisha Lance Bot­toms, a demo­c­rat can­di­date for gov­er­nor responds that the GA GOP can “keep on under­es­ti­mat­ing women. We’ll prove them wrong in Novem­ber.”
• The revenge of the Frost fam­i­ly. David Cross beat Brant Frost 2 years ago and they have been plan­ning revenge for 2 years. You can’t back off the GRA with the Frost fam­i­ly. Alex John­son is the one that wrote through the GRA email what a suc­cess­ful con­ven­tion. Alex has to do a 180 and look at all the facts and make a deci­sion. 
• This is not legal advice: If you want to deny your charges for the con­ven­tion, you have your rights that when you pro­vide mon­ey you get the ser­vices promised. Don’t fall for any­thing Deb­bie Doo­ley says. When you pur­chase a tick­et or reg­is­ter for a con­ven­tion, you enter into a con­tract with the event orga­niz­er. This con­tract includes terms regard­ing your right to attend and par­tic­i­pate in the event. A rea­son­able per­son would expect that if they pay for an event, they would be allowed to par­tic­i­pate. Unless the con­tract explic­it­ly states oth­er­wise, you would gen­er­al­ly have the right to par­tic­i­pate. They, the orga­niz­ers and pre-planned group who blocked the del­e­gates, threat­ened to remove and have arrest­ed del­e­gates who attempt­ed to speak. The del­e­gates only want­ed to point out the rule vio­la­tions and be able to hold a valid con­ven­tion. We were not allowed to do so. It is your right to dis­pute the charges because they took your rights away from you Sat­ur­day. 
• Every del­e­gate in the room, no mat­ter where you were sit­ting, you were to have an equal right at the micro­phone to ask a ques­tion. There should not have had to had a plan to ask ques­tion. They planned to con­trol every com­mit­tee to con­trol the con­ven­tion. As a del­e­gate you should be able to trust the par­ty to put all the com­mit­tees togeth­er for the best inter­est of the body to pro­vide you with rules, can­di­dates, and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in the con­ven­tion and the par­ty. The con­trol was from before the con­ven­tion start­ed, the click­ers, the com­mit­tees, the chair. Brant Frost posts ”Josh appoint­ed a GRA mem­ber Suzi Voyles as chair and with her lead­er­ship and the hard work of a cou­ple of mem­bers, we were able to get all that great stuff. If we had not con­trolled that com­mit­tee, that would have nev­er hap­pened. We con­trolled the micro­phones because we got there first. We allowed the oth­er side to make points of order which in fact were motions and despite this disin­gen­u­ous­ness we still allowed it to hap­pen. I do not apol­o­gize for being bet­ter at pol­i­tics than oth­er peo­ple when what we are doing is lit­er­al­ly pol­i­tics. For to do so would be in all due mod­esty and hon­esty val­i­dat­ing envy. TeamJosh was bet­ter orga­nized and I make no apol­o­gy for that.” When they did a stand­ing vote there was no way the sergeant of arms could count the num­bers stand­ing before the chair told them to sit. Many of the points of order were for paper bal­lots, 63% of repub­li­cans want paper bal­lots, Don­ald Trump wants paper bal­lots, and the GA GOP order click­ers for the vote. 
• We chose to par­tic­i­pate in a con­ven­tion that was not cor­rupt. You are allowed rea­son­able expec­ta­tions when you go to a con­ven­tion.  When the rules came up a motion could have been made to amend the rules and a debate to hap­pen. Today you do not know if the click­ers were cor­rect and who main­tained the data. 
• Who will be the chair when Josh leaves? Katie Frost? Salleigh Grubbs? Katie is in train­ing to be chair. Salleigh doesn’t have what it takes. Salleigh will nice­ly stand aside. 
• Greg Dolezal shouldn’t run for LT gov, stay state sen­a­tor or find anoth­er lead­er­ship posi­tion. Kan­diss has a major prob­lem. She is find­ing out right now that Josh can­not help her and Vic­ki can only pray for her and Salleigh can’t get involved. Kan­diss is find­ing out that sell­ing out the grass­roots did not work out for her. Kan­diss doesn’t know how to han­dle things she can’t run for office. A lady doc­tor has put her name in for Dis­trict 1 rep. There are a lot of can­di­dates com­ing out. 
• You will hear alot about this, this week­end. A fed­er­al appeals court has revived a law­suit aim­ing to stop four peo­ple from run­ning as repub­li­can in Catoosa Coun­ty in a lim­it­ed vic­to­ry for far-right groups as they seek to pre­vent more main­stream con­ser­v­a­tives from qual­i­fy­ing as GOP can­di­dates. There is bal­lot access at three lev­els: local, state, and fed­er­al. If state law­mak­ers feel that they will not get bal­lot access they will move to give the access approval to the leg­is­la­ture.