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Who is JaQuon Stembridge? Georgia GOP leader resigns over allegedly trying to meet underage boy on dating app
JaQuon Stembridge, leader of the Georgia Teen Republicans, has resigned from his position after allegations that he was trying to meet an underage boy.
JaQuon Stembridge had a meteoric rise when he became the youngest-ever elected member of State Executive Committee of the Republican Party in Georgia. He was elected assistant secretary at the GOP state convention in June. Now, he's resigned from his position after allegations of him trying to meet an underage boy, The Georgia Record reported.
The leader of the Georgia Teen Republicans was confronted yesterday by a person when he was allegedly trying to meet the underage person, apparently on a dating app. Texts along with a video was shared widely online. HT.com could not independently verify this information.
Notably, Stembridge had been vocal about his intention to run against GA GOP head Josh McKoon for control of the GA GOP, as per The Georgia Record.
Who is JaQuon Stembridge?
Stembridge is enrolled at the University of North Georgia. He's 19 years old and a political science major.
During his election, he said “I was tired of going through a middleman in order to get young people the help they needed and to help get young people engaged in the Republican Party. I figured, you know what, instead of going through a middleman, how about I just step up and do it myself?”, as per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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He's from Greene County and had announced his candidacy in March. Stembridge then spent the final part of his freshman year commuting from his dorm to GOP events across the state to campaign for expanding the party's outreach and including younger voices.
At the time, he'd said “That party of rich white men just overwhelmingly elected the 18-year-old Black guy named Ja’Quon. You’ve never seen that happen in the Republican Party. So I think that’s very significant. It shows that our party is moving in a new direction,” as per AJC.
His interest in politics reportedly began five years back. He's said he was born into a household of ‘generational Democrats’, developing his own political outlook during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he ‘started doing his own research’.
“I realized that everything I learned about the Republican Party was far from the truth. And it was all a misconception that my family learned from generation to generation. It wasn’t just the party of rich white men that only cared about themselves, but it was truly the party of hardworking men and women that care about common sense issues,” the publication reported him say. Eventually he founded the Teen Republicans chapter in the 10th district in 2023 and became chairman of the statewide organization later.
Stembridge is into college football, apart from politics, as per the AJC. Prior to joining University of North Georgia, he studied at Greene County High School.
