An Anguillian has taken up a seat on the Republican National Committee. Antoinette Gumbs-Hecht, of Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas, was elected national committeewoman of the Republican Party in the United States Virgin Islands during a March 29 party caucus run by the national party. She defeated opponent April Newland with 91.02 percent of the vote, according to certified caucus results.
The daughter of Lucia Brooks of North Valley and Milton Gumbs of Rey Hill, she grew up in North Valley with her grandmother, great-grandmother, two sisters, brother and other family members. In 1995, she emigrated and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2009. Mrs. Gumbs-Hecht is married to Todd Hecht, who runs the film production and location services company FilmVI, and has two children, 20-year-old Brooke and 15-year-old Hudson.
Each of the Republican Party’s 56 state and territorial parties elects a committeewoman and committeeman to sit on the committee, which functions as the national board of directors. With her election, she is the first Anguillian ever elected to the Republican National Committee.
“It is a tremendous honor and great privilege to not only represent the Virgin Islands, but to give voice to the West Indian community at the highest level of the Republican Party,” said Mrs. Gumbs-Hecht, a real estate agent and active member of Island Fellowship Church. “Most West Indians are not Democrat or Republican in a stateside American definition but are instinctively conservative on many issues.”
Following the example of recent Republican National Committee inroads with Hispanic Americans, Mrs. Gumbs-Hecht wants to expand the party’s outreach to West Indians not just in the Virgin Islands but also in electorally critical states like Florida, where a large diaspora exists.
“It is almost impossible to win the presidential election without carrying Florida,” she said. “If you look at Jamaica, St. Lucia and other islands, West Indians do vote for conservative parties. There is no reason why we can’t parlay that with Republicans.”
As one of five American territories in the Caribbean and Pacific, the Virgin Islands — the islands of St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas were a colonial possession of Denmark until 1917 — cannot vote in the general election for president of the United States. However, the territories fully and equally participate in the Republican primaries and caucuses to nominate the presidential candidate every four years.
Mrs. Gumbs-Hecht will serve in her national leadership post alongside Virgin Islands Republican Chairman Gordon Ackley and Jevon O.A. Williams, the party’s committeeman for the Republican National Committee.
“We thank Virgin Islands Republicans for coming out to vote yesterday to elect their party leaders and we welcome Gordon, Antoinette, and Jevon to the RNC,” Republican National Committee Chairman Ronna McDaniel said in a press release after the caucus votes were counted. “We look forward to partnering with the Republican Party of the Virgin Islands to elect candidates up and down the ballot.”
