GREENVILLE, S.C. (WOLO,
AP) – A tea party Republican who recently helped turn over the party leadership in South Carolina’s largest county has died from complications of COVID-19.
Party leaders and his family say 64-year-old Pressley Stutts died Thursday.
Over the summer, Stutts led a group loyal to former President Donald Trump to force the resignation of several Greenville County Republican Party leaders. Stutts said he was following Trump’s wishes to kick anyone who didn’t fully support the former president out of the Republican party.
Stutts had been hospitalized with COVID-19 since late July, frequently updating his health on Facebook.
Stutts wrote COVID-19 was serious, but he couldn’t support mask or vaccine mandates because they encroach on American freedoms.
His final post came five days before his death, when he wrote he chose to go on a ventilator and planned to “wake up from this short rest and be back in the game soon!”
“This is my OWN decision. I trust God to keep me. I ask you to trust Him, too,” Stutts wrote.