Taylor Yarkosky wins election as new leader of Lake County GOP

TALLAHASSEE, FLA. 1/5/23- Rep. Taylor Yarkosky, R-Montverde, during the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee, Thursday at the Capitol in Tallahassee. COLIN HACKLEY PHOTO

Rep. Taylor Yarkosky has won election as the new Chair for the Republican Party of Lake County. The Montverde Republican technically won against Lake County Commissioner Leslie Campione, but Campione ran largely as a stand-in for outgoing Property Appraiser Carey Baker.

But from the angry discourse around the election, Yarkosky’s candidacy primarily stood in contrast to that of outgoing party Chair Anthony Sabatini.

“My election showed we are ready for a breath of fresh air, new vision and new leadership,” Yarkosky said, “and most importantly, we are sick and tired of the party treating people the way they have been treated. People have been bullied, abused and manhandled in all kinds of ways.”

Sabatini, who won election in 2022, did not run for another term. The former Representative won election this year as a Lake County Commissioner.

He made clear his displeasure at the results of the election, which Yarkosky won by about 30 votes. According to Sabatini, Yarkosky’s victory was only possible because a number of individuals had only recently qualified for precinct committee positions.

This happened as another recent politically turbulent moment in Lake County unfolded, one that also involved Baker. The incumbent Lake County Property Appraiser just lost re-election as a write-in candidate after the controversial last-minute qualification of Republican Mark Jordan. Critics of Jordan alleged that his allies gave Yarkosky the needed votes to win the party Chair seat.

The local party under Sabatini’s leadership censured Jordan and his brother, Lake County Tax Collector David Jordan, after Mark Jordan filed to have his name on the ballot just before the qualifying deadline, and within minutes of Baker filing as a write-in.

Sabatini said the Jordans both supported Yarkosky, and said many executive committee members had qualified as precinct committee representatives at the same time Jordan filed for the county office.

“David Jordan and Mark Jordan made their first public appearance in six months,” Sabatini said.

“Nobody has seen them until last night. They recruited into the party about 40 of their family members and employees. All of them were instructed to vote against Carey. There’s a longer story actually. About five minutes before the end of qualifying at the same time Mark Jordan qualified against Carey, they also walked in with a manila folder of about 40 or 50 of the Jordan employees and family members at David’s office.”

Yarkosky characterizes things differently. He said numerous Republicans living in Lake County grew tired of the party’s antics under Sabatini.

“They decided to become members and to become engaged. They were always about Republican politics but were not voting members of the REC (Republican Executive Committee),” Yarkosky said. “So many of those people came to see me, as did some prior Chairs, to encourage me in private and say ‘Taylor, you have to do this.’”

On Wednesday evening, Yarkosky ran against Campione, but said the open plan if Campione was to win would be that she appoint Baker to a precinct-level position, then resign and allow Baker to immediately run.

Yarkosky said he has positive relationships with Baker and Campione, as well as David Jordan. But he considered that a manipulation of the rules little different than Mark Jordan’s tactics for winning the Property Appraiser’s position.

In a post on X, Sabatini predicted Yarkosky’s tenure as party leader would be short, suggesting the most active members of the party would push the new Chair out one way or another once new members lose interest.

“The degenerates go from 80 to 40 within a month. Therefore the ‘officers’ who were elected will be totally disempowered starting next month,” Sabatini wrote on X.

“How? Because the local Republican party is a bottom up organization — just to adopt an agenda and begin a simple meeting, requires a majority vote from the floor. These ‘David Jordan Officers’ won’t get an agenda approved without OUR approved agenda items that we propose. Which, of course, begins with the first amendment to the agenda to require the swearing in of Carey Baker as a precinctman and the appointment of a Policy Committee.”

For his part, Yarkosky said he has no problem with Baker becoming a member of the REC, but in January.

Lake County is a heavily Republican jurisdiction, with more than 129,000 registered Republicans compared to just over 69,000 Democrats and 67,000 voters without party affiliation.

But Yarkosky said the party should not become a place of infighting, and its enemy should remain political forces on “the left.” He said the role of the county party is to register as many Republicans as possible and to make sure they turn out to vote.

“If we till the soil and make it so red that nothing purple, let alone blue, can live here, then we have already won and the policymaking takes care of itself,” he said.

Regardless, Yarkosky said the party must move past personal destruction of its own members in order to move forward in any constructive way.

“Anthony Sabatini has got evil in his heart and he has no business running anything,” he said. “The things he said, I just don’t care what he thinks. It makes no difference to me.”