WTPC History with TomZ Bio and Pictures

Tom Zawistowski Bio (Last updated 11/2025):

Tom Zawistowski (Zow-is-tow-ski) , is the CEO and Founder, with his wife Nanette, of TRZ Communications, a 45 year old technology company based in Akron, Ohio.  He has also started three additional companies and multiple non-profit organizations. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Communication from Edinboro State College in Pennsylvania, and a Masters Degree in Sports Management from Kent State University in Ohio. He did doctoral work toward a degee in Education Administration at both Kent State and the College of William and Mary in Virginia.
 

Our Beginnings as the Portage County TEA Party (2009 - Present)

On July 11, 2009 the Portage County TEA Party was founded. One of the four original founders of the group Tom Zawistowski became the Executive Director in January of 2010, a position he still holds.  Under his leadership, the Portage County TEA Party became one of the most successful liberty groups in Ohio and the Nation with over 2,600 members at it's peak. When the Portage County TEA Party began, EVERY elected official in the county and most city governments were Democrats, including the County Auditor who claimed she was a Republican but was not! Even the Chairman of the Portage County Republican was a Democrat! The County had been in the control democrats since 1958.

From our founding we worked tirelessly to educate the public about the Constitution, political party structure, and the process for getting conservatives elected to local offices. Over the next 16 years the Portage County TEA Party turned Portage County from totally Blue to Totally Red. We took over the Portage County Republican Party in 2019 and today EVERY elected county official and both Ohio House and Senate members are Republican, elected primarily through the efforts of the Portage County TEA Party Members.

In 2010, Zawistowski's efforts in Portage County and NE Ohio helped Elect Republican John Kasich as Governor and Republican Rob Portman to US Senate in races they were projected to lose. Through Zawistowski's leadership the Portage County TEA Party knocked on 40,000 doors and swept the election for the Republians in a historically Democratic County for the first time since 1958. Since our founding, Ohio has turned from a "purple" state to a "red" state with ALL Statewide elected official being Republicans and Super Majority Repubicans in the Ohio House and the Ohio Senate. We also helped the national TEA Party movement take the US House from Democrats by winning a historic, and unexpected by the experts, 62 seats in the House to slow down the destrutive Obama socialist agenda to "radically transform" the United States. This was the Portage County TEA Party's first involvement outside of local politics.

In 2013 the Portage County TEA Party spun off a novel idea to promote historical knowledge for school age children. The idea came from Nanette Zawistowski and Anne Kaczmarek who created the "Liberty Camp for Kids" summer day camp where children could "Experience the Found of America". They were quickly joined by Lanny and Brenda Derreberry and a host of annual volunteers and reinactors to put together a program that captivated kids throughout Northeast Ohio for over a decade. Without doubt, Liberty Camp for Kids, is one of the most successful efforts of the Portage County TEA Party. Thousands of Portage County children have "met" our founding fathers in persons each summer on the grounds of the Portage County Historical Society where children live as if it were 1775!  The camp continues to this day under the leadership of Rita Scott and her team of volunteers.

From 2015 through 2025, the Portage County TEA Party has played a critical role in our efforts to defeat the radical left and restore Constitutionally Limited Governance and the Rule of Law to our Nation. In 2016, the efforts of the members of the Portage County TEA Party and the many other TEA Party groups in Ohio led directly to the election of Donald J. Trump to the Presidency. If Northeast Ohio does not vote for Donald Trump in 2016 he would never have won Ohio and would neve have become President of the United States. The Portage County TEA Party led those efforts. You will read more details about those efforts below.

Our Fight to Save Fracking in Ohio and the United States (2009-2012)

In 2010, Tom and the members of the Portage County TEA Party became aware of an effort by Leftist out of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY to ban oil and gas hydrolic fracturing, which is call FRACKING today. The radical climate activists were funded by powerful leftist organiations like the Park Foundation, Heinz Endowments, and William Penn Foundation who paid for the academic reports, activist organizing, data tools, high priced lawyers, and public-facing research that fueled anti-fracking outreach to local and state governments starting in 2009–2010. Their plan was to cripple America by promoting lies about the dangers of hydrolic fracturing at a time when the US economy was starving for plentyful low cost energy.

They even produced a propaganda "documentary" film called "Gasland" in 2010 that claimed that hydrolic fracturing polluted local water, caused your kitchen faucet to water to ignite into flames, and caused earthquakes!  The goal was to fighten elected officials and the public in order to get them to ban what would become one of the most successful energy technologies in the history of the word in order to criple capitalism!

At the time, 2009, Ohio's economy had been declining for years and hydrolic fracturing was a promissing new technology that could bring many much needed jobs and businesses to Ohio. Suddenly, we heard stories about high priced lawyers from out of state attending our Portage County Township Trustee meetings pushing for townships to ban fracking! Upon investigating their claims, including Tom spending and entire day at the home of a prominent Kent State University professor who was an expert in oil and gas drilling, it became clear that this effort out of New York was not about public safety at all - it was about crippling the United States Oil & Gas Industry for ideological reasons.

The Portage County TEA Party members took immediate action. We started to attend the Township Trustee meetings in which the idea of banning fracking were being discussed. We handed out flyers debunking the claims of the lefty lawyers were making. We did Press Releases warning other citizens and counties about what was going on. We meet with Oil & Gas Industry Executives to warn about the threat to that industry in Ohio and our Nation. We started providing information to other TEA Party Groups in Ohio asking them to hold meetings on the Fracking topic and go to their Township Trustee Meetings. New York state was already on the way to banning fracking and Ohio would be the next domino to fall and we could not let that happen! If Ohio banned fracking, it would be the end of fracking in the US!

Then in 2011, we meet Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, two Irish born documentary film makers, who were interested in making a film to debunk the "Gasland" propaganda film. They had no money to make the film so the TEA Party Movement got behind our first "crowd sourcing" effort through a new online service called Kickstarter. We raised some $150,000 for their efforts and then they recieved funding from some organizations alligned with the gas industry and were able to release the film "FrackNation" in January of 2013.

However, efforts were being made to keep the film out of movie theaters so that the public could not see the truth about fracking. So Tom organized an effort to have the film shown at TEA Party meetings throughout Ohio and even in some theaters that we rented for the showings. The film was a hit and it had a major impact on turning public opinion in Ohio in favor of fracking. That created the politcial environment for elected officials to act on May 24, 2013 to pass legislation which legally upheld hydrolic fracturing and making clear that local zoning ordinances or municipal bans cannot block fracking — only the state can regulate drilling. 

As a direct result of the Portage County TEA Party's and Ohio TEA Party Groups' efforts, the United States has surpassed Saudi Arabia and Russia as the largest producer of Oil and Gas of any nation in the World. Today 64% of all oil and gas produced in the United States comes from wells the have been hydrolically fracked and the technonlogy is now in use all over the world.

The Council of Economic Advisers (White House, 2019): Estimated the shale revolution lowered U.S. consumer energy bills by ~$203 billion per year (about $2,500 per family of four), with ~80% of the savings from cheaper natural gas and electricity; oil accounts for the rest. A savings of $203 Billion per year over the last 13 years amounts to $2.6 TRILLION in saving for American Citizens and Families. The Portage County TEA Party deserves a tremendous amount of credit for our efforts to protect and defend American Prosperity!

 

The Beginnings of the We the People Convention (2011 - Present)

In 2011, Tom was nominated by liberty leaders around the state of Ohio to head a group of volunteers that was challenged with the task of putting on the first ever state convention for liberty minded citizens.  He and his committee, which included his wife Nanette, pulled together in less than six months the highly acclaimed "We the People" Convention which was held at the Columbus Convention Center during the 4th of July weekend of 2011. The event was attended by over 1,000 Patriots and featured over 40 breakout sessions and top notch speakers such as Presidential Candidate Herman Cain, Dick Morris, John Fund and Jenny Beth Martin and many others. The 2nd We the People Convention was held on June 29-30th, 2012 at the Ohio State Fairgrounds in Columbus and sold 1,100 tickets. The convention was held for 10 straight years until Covid.
 

Leadership of the Ohio Liberty Coalition and the Target of the TEA Party by the IRS

Shortly after the first We the People Convention, Tom was asked to become, and accepted the position of being, the second President in the History of the Ohio Liberty Council, which became the Ohio Liberty Coalition. The OLC was a state-wide organization that coordinated the efforts of Ohio’s 150+ local liberty groups in the pursuit of individual liberty and Constitutionally limited governance. As President, Tom played a role in the passage of State Issue 3 in 2011 which prohibited Ohio from forming an Obamacare State Health Care Exchange.

In the spring of 2013, he became a focal point of the IRS "TEA Party Targeting" scandal after having told the IRS in 2012, as President of the OLC and Executive Director of the Portage County TEA Party, that his organizations would not comply with their demands for information in exchange for getting tax exempt status.  Zawistowski appeared on FoxNews numerous times and was interviewed by nearly every major newspaper, TV network and radio network in the country about the inappropriate actions of the IRS. Through his leadership the OLC was granted it’s tax exempt status in December of 2012. Zawistowski was a lead plaintiff in the two class action law suits against the IRS, one of which resulted in a $3.2 million payment by the IRS to TEA Party Groups, both of which were won by the TEA Party. Zawistowski was featured in a documentary movie about these court cases called  "Targeting U.S." which was produce by the ACLJ and released in November of 2019.
 

Tom Zawistowski Speaks at the IRS-Targeting of the TEA Party Press Conference (May 16, 2013)

Zawistowski has been recognized as one of the top liberty group leaders in the nation for his efforts to defend the legal right of Liberty groups to be granted 501(c) 4 tax exempt status by the IRS.  He has worked closely with nearly all of the major national conservative organization as well as conservative groups within Ohio.

Zawistowski resigned as OLC President in January of 2013 to focus on running the Portage County TEA Party and the We the People Convention. He launched his own radio show in August of 2013 on WHLO 640 AM in Akron called “TEA Party Talk with TomZ” which has a state wide listening audience. He also started the Ohio Citizen PAC which has successfully helped to elect state central committee members and conservative representatives in Ohio. 


 

Winning Ohio and the Election of Trump in 2016

Zawistowski led the state wide efforts to elect Donald Trump in 2016 in Ohio. He and his coalition were successful despite the efforts of “Republican” Governor John Kasich and the Ohio Republican Party to sabotage Trump's election in Ohio. He helped convince the RNC and the Trump organization to reject the Ohio Republican Party and instead build it's own 2016 campaign structure - which was the ONLY such Trump state organization in United States in 2016.  He then partnered with the NRA-ILA to organize tens of thousands of volunteers who set records for the number of phone calls made and doors knocked in 2016. The result of which was the turning out of tens of thousands of "non-voters", people who had not voted in years, who came out and voted for Trump and won Ohio by a stunning 8% which enabled him to become the 45th US President.

Winning Ohio AGAIN and the 2020 Election

Zawistowski started a new radio show called "Talking Trump with TomZ" which ran during the first year of the Trump Presidency.  Since the Left had determined that they were defeated in 2016 because of our use social media, they took action to make sure Patriots could not use Social Media in the 2020 election. To counter this censorship Zawistowski fundraised enough money to build and operate a five station, state-wide, weekly radio network/podcasts called "We the People News & Opinion" to help communicate with activists and the Ohio general public during the 2020 election.  Zawistowski also re-newed the TEA Party relationship with the NRA-ILA and worked closely with them to win Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Pennsylvania again in 2020. He then devised a series of creative non-digital marketing tactics including: Trump Train Road Rallies, Sign Waves, the Barn Billboard Program, and the Podcast and radio network to win Ohio for Trump again in 2020 by 8%!

 

The We the People Convention becomes a National Organization

After the 2020 Election, Zawistowski led an effort to convince President Trump to declare limited and temporary martial law to have the U.S. Military oversee a revote of the federal elections in all 50 states using paper ballots and photo ID.  The We the People Convention paid for a full page ad in the Washington Times Newspaper on December 1, 2020 that made the case for Trump to use his Constitional Powers to Defend the Republic by declaring partial and temporary martial to re-do the 2020 Federal Election to verify the results as true. Our appeal reached Trump and was considered but was not acted upon by Trump. The news of our Ad went viral causing over one million people to come to the We the People Convention website within three days.

At the point, the We  the People Convention became a national organization. Over 100,000 people signed our petition asking President Trump to re-do the election and those people were from all 50 states and many foreign countries. Many of those people continue to be members of the WTPC to this day and donate to fund our efforts. 

Since January 6, 2020, Zawistowski has been working to help expose the voter fraud that stole the 2020 election; to help defeat the federalization of elections by the Left in the form of HB 1; and to help reform election rules in the states working with his long time friend Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote, and with the Heritage Foundation's Election Integrity Project. He has also raised money and worked toward getting Justice for the January 6th Political Prisoners being unfairly held in the DC Gulags.

Zawistowski launched the weekly "We the People Convention News & Opinion Podcast" as a news aggregation show that worked to inform Patriots about news and information that affected their Individual Freedom, Liberty and Proseperity. The show exposed the Left's, and right's, propaganda and tied stories together to help people see the relationships between news that did not appear to be related. The main feature of the show is to give Patriots a list of action items each week from them to take at the local, state and federal levels in order to protect and defend individual freedom, liberty and prosperity. The show reaches tens of thousands of viewers/listener every week on the WTPC website, on the WTPC Rumble Channel, on the WTPC's Roku and Amazon Fire TV Channela and on many audio streaming channels from Apple Podcasts and IHeart Podcasts and others. 
 

Winning the Critical 2024 Election

In 2024, the We the People Convention and the organization's Federal SuperPAC, the Freedom for ALL PAC,  committed all of it's efforts to re-electing Donald Trump President of the United States; winning back control of the US Senate by fighting to Elect Republican Bernie Moreno in Ohio and defeating Democrat Sherrod Brown; and making sure that Republicans held control of the US House by working with the NRA-ILA to organize volunteers who impacted tens of millions of voters in 34 states. All of which was accomplished. The organization also pushed hard on conservatives in Deep Red States and Deep Blue States to get out and vote in order to win the Popular Vote, which was thought to be impossible, yet was also accomplished with Trump winning the Popular Vote by approximately 5 Million votes!  
 

 

 

 

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