by The combined list of candidates for the 2026 NRA Board of Directors election was released on Friday. It includes all candidates that were either nominated by the Nominating Committee or who are in the ballot by petition. As a reminder, petition candidates needed a minimum of 363 valid signatures from NRA voting members.
Three candidates were also double nominated. That is they are on the ballot by both nomination and by petition. Last election, I was one of two who were double nominated as I considered it important to be on the ballot by the will of the members. This year’s three are Rob Beckman, Steve Schreiner, and Amanda Suffecool.
Looking over the list of candidates they range in age from 25 years old to over 90 with a lot in the middle. There is also a good geographical dispersion with candidates representing the West, Midwest, and East. There are also a number of new candidates who have never run for the Board previously. These new candidates are on the ballot by both methods.
I knew a number of what I consider the Old Guard were running by petition. Only three by my count made it. The shocker to me is the absence of former NRA President Charles Cotton who I erroneously thought had qualified by petition. I would be a hypocrite if I said I was upset by that.
If I have my numbers are correct, out of the 38 candidates, 25 will be elected to 3-year terms, one will be the 76th Director, and one will fill the remaining year of a two-year term that was open last year. Thus, 27 26 out of the 38 candidates will be elected.
The full, corrected list is below:
CORRECTION: I made an incorrect assumption about the two year term filled in 2025. That seat was to fill Carolyn Meadows’ seat that opened up in 2024. The remainder of that year was filled by next runner-up Kim Rhode. Then the 2025 election was to fill the full remaining two years of Meadows’ seat which went to first runner-up Joel Friedman. He will fill that seat until 2027.
Secretary John Frazer sent me this explanation:
A vacancy is filled initially by the next available runner-up (through the next Annual Meeting). See Bylaws Art. IV sec. 2. Then, after the meeting, the remainder of the term (one or two years) is filled by election. See Art. VIII sec. 3(j). This keeps the board’s “classes” equal when different lengths of vacancies occur.
To illustrate with Joel’s case, Carolyn Meadows was elected in 2024 to a three-year term, but resigned in August 2024. Kim Rhode was the next runner-up and filled the vacancy until the 2025 Annual Meeting. On the 2025 ballot, Joel came in 26th, so he was elected to finish Carolyn’s term until 2027.
Do we have an updated team-roster for Our Guys vs Their Guys? With this many, it’s hard to keep track… 🙁
The ‘reformer’ website ElectANewNRA.com will be active mid November in preparation for the Mid/Late January ballots going out.
FYI, if you need to confirm when people get appointed/voted into vacancies in the future, let me know when you are working on a post. I pulled my much older records and created a bit of a tracker on those things sorted in a way to easily update each time a seat opens. Why? Because it is insanely confusing. And the fact that some vacancies have been held by upwards of 3 people in the same seat – just miserable to track. Even then, there’s still a few seats that I’m not 100% sure I had the right people in during the nightmare turnover cycle when they actually ran out of extra directors to fill vacancies. But I think we’re enough cycles beyond that where my system works.
Okay, just double checked my list and there’s a seat that’s had 4 people if I’ve been able to track it correctly. Herb Lanford was elected in 2023 until 2026. He died in early 2024. His seat went to James Chapman until the 2024 election results came in. Then it went to Susannah Kipke. She resigned to go on as staff. So John Sigler took the seat until the 2025 elections. Now the remainder of that seat is filled by – I believe – Richard Fairburn. (There were several 1 year filler elected in the last go, so that may be up in the air based on how they assign those open seats.)
The turnover is nuts.
Thanks for the update, and thanks to Bitter too!
Joel Freidman? From California? Uggh.
He was from California. According to the last I saw, he now lives in the Las Vegas area.