About This Effort
Provincetown has no Republican Town Committee. Here is what that means, and how neighbors can start one.
Where Things Stand
A Republican Town Committee is the local body of the Republican Party in a town, organized under Massachusetts General Laws chapter 52. It recruits candidates, gets out the vote, and gives Republicans and like-minded independents a place to work together.
Provincetown does not have one today. The last Provincetown Republican Town Committee on file with the state’s Office of Campaign and Political Finance was closed in 2020 (OCPF record 76452). The town has 54 registered Republicans and 1,573 unenrolled voters, and nobody organized to speak for them.
Who Is Behind This Site
This site is hosted by the RTC Network — Republican town committees across Cape Cod and the South Shore that share tools and help one another. Our neighbors next door in Truro and down the Cape in Orleans, Harwich and Yarmouth are part of it. It is not the website of a Provincetown committee, because there is not one yet. When Provincetown residents organize a committee, this site becomes theirs.
The Harbor Where the Compact Was Signed
The Mayflower anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor on November 11, 1620 (Old Style). Before anyone went ashore, forty-one of the men aboard signed an agreement to form a government and abide by its laws — the document now known as the Mayflower Compact. The passengers explored the Cape for several weeks before sailing on to Plymouth. The National Park Service calls the Compact “the first act of European self-government in the New World.”
The settlement at the tip of the Cape became the Precinct of Cape Cod in 1714, under the jurisdiction of the Town of Truro, and was incorporated as the Town of Provincetown on June 14, 1727. By the town’s own account the name records that title to the land was kept by the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
The Pilgrim Monument commemorates the landing and the Compact. Its cornerstone was laid on August 20, 1907 in a Masonic ceremony with President Theodore Roosevelt, and it was dedicated by President William H. Taft on August 5, 1910. It stands 252 feet, 7.5 inches tall.
Sources: Pilgrim Hall Museum; National Park Service, Cape Cod National Seashore; Town of Provincetown historical timeline and Charter; Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum.
How Provincetown Governs Itself
Provincetown has an Open Town Meeting: the town’s legislative power is exercised by its registered voters. Under the Town Charter the Annual Town Meeting is held on the first Monday in April and the Annual Town Election on the second Tuesday in May. A five-member Select Board and a Town Manager run the town day to day. See our Town Meetings page for what is on the calendar now.
What Republicans Believe
The Republican town committees in this network share a mission: to support the work of the Republican Party at every level of government, and to promote the principles of freedom, equality, and justice as intended by the founders of the Constitution of the United States — pride in our country and our heritage, government that stays close to the people and out of their way, and the strengthening of family, good character and integrity.
Get Involved
If you are a Provincetown voter — Republican or independent — and you want to help start a committee, or just want to know when something is happening, add your name. Neighbors from the other committees will help you get it off the ground.