Photos courtesy of Chad Mathis.
Chad Mathis with another delegate at the Republican National Convention.
While most people watched Donald Trump accept the Republican presidential nomination on TV, Chad Mathis was right at the foot of the stage.
Mathis, an eight-year resident of North Shelby County and lifelong Republican, was one of Alabama’s delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July. During the primary elections, Mathis served as the state co-chair for Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign and was elected one of his delegates. Though Cruz dropped out prior to the convention, the delegates he won in the Alabama primary were still invited to the convention.
“I was sad that he wasn’t going to be the candidate, but I still wanted to go and represent the people of Alabama,” Mathis said.
Behind the big speeches that get shown on TV, Mathis said a lot of his time was spent in meetings and taking votes. He was there for a week and said he never ran out of things to do at the convention hall.
“There was just so much going on the entire week, which was very surprising,” Mathis said.
Being on the main convention floor, Mathis said, was “pretty electric” due to the energy of the crowd. He said it was not uncommon to see national politicians and major news reporters milling through the crowd alongside the delegates.
“You’re just in a sea of people, and you never know who’s going to walk next to you,” Mathis said. “So we saw all kinds of folks.”
The colorful costumes associated with political conventions also were entertaining, Mathis said.
Since he knew all of Alabama’s Cruz delegates and most of the Trump delegates prior to the convention, Mathis said they made a good group to represent the state.
“It was a great atmosphere and good camaraderie between all the delegates,” he said.
Mathis is a self-described “political junkie.” He has been politically active since 2010 and besides his work on the Cruz campaign, Mathis ran for a U.S. House of Representatives seat in 2014 and is the chairman for the Alabama Federation for Children, an education choice political group in Montgomery. Because of his love for politics, Mathis said the speeches were some of the highlights of his trip.
In that regard, Mathis was lucky. Alabama’s delegation was placed right next to the main convention stage, so he had the perfect spot to listen to speakers. Mathis said he particularly enjoyed hearing from Cruz and vice presidential nominee Mike Pence.
The week closed out with Trump’s acceptance speech and the iconic balloon drop. Mathis is back home now with his wife, Angie, and children, Abby and Ben. He is an orthopedic surgeon at the Alabama Bone and Joint Clinic in Pelham. He said he’s looking forward to seeing how the race plays out until November.
“I think Donald Trump has to get a little more on message and make his case to the American people,” Mathis said, adding that he thinks the Republican candidate has a good shot at the presidency if he does these things.
Regardless of the election-day results, Mathis said he’d like to be a delegate at the next Republican convention in 2020.
“I was very pleasantly surprised by the whole process,” he said.
