CONCORD - State Republican Party chairman Jack Kimball said Thursday he will not resign his post, despite pressure from a growing list of state party officials.

A special meeting has been called for Sept. 1 at which the party's executive board will vote whether to remove him from his office. Twenty two party executive board members called the furor over Kimball “a serious distraction” that is diverting party energy.

Kimball won the chairman's post against a candidate endorsed by former GOP state chair and former governor John H. Sununu. He said he has not had contact with Sununu, and declined to speculate on whether he is behind the ouster movement.

With about a dozen supporters behind him, Kimball said the attempt to force him into leaving will not work.

“I won't step down. I will go to that meeting and they will look me in the eye and they will vote,” he said. He urged the GOP board “vote conscience instead of politics … I plead with them not to pick this fight.”

Kimball's opponents point to lackluster fundraising, special election losses, dismissal of the party's executive director and his decision to sign a Libertarian Party petition as reasons he should leave.

He defended himself on each charge yesterday, and said his own party is now engaged in “gotcha” politics.

Kimball, elected as chairman in a groundswell of Tea Party activism early this year, said he has worked to be a bridge between Tea Partiers and what he called “the Establishment.”

Kimball said “It is a shame to see the false accusations and the infighting on such a spectacular scale.”

Noting his Tea Party leanings, he said, “I represent a movement – a political movement – much larger than myself.” He mentioned as an aside that he owns a boat named “Never Quit.”

Kimball warned of a destructive fissure in the Republican Party if he is forced out.

“If I am voted out it is going to cause a fissure in this party that is going to open a wound that isn't going to heal real soon. This is the worst possible thing to happen at the worst possible time with the first in the nation primary coming up.”

Just before he spoke, U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte's office released a letter signed by 22 GOP officials calling for him to resign. The Union Leader has also said in an editorial that Kimball needs to leave.

Kimball said that won't happen.

He repeated his charge that Speaker of the House William O'Brien and former congressional candidate Jennifer Horn told him the Republican Governor's Association offer to give the party $100,000 if he would quit his post, plus funds the Congressional delegation would donate.

“I won't stand for that kind of deal-making - neither will the voters - and they deserve to know the truth,” Kimball said.

The Granite State Tea Party sent reporters an email saying that the deal amounts to bribery of a party official under state law. Kimball said he won't ask for an investigation.

“As far as I'm concerned, it speaks for itself,” he said.

Kimball said he has raised $191,400 in his first two fiscal quarters and he plans to leave the party debt-free. The funds raised so far have paid off party debts that stem to days of an Election Day phone jamming scandal in 2002 and 2007-08 Federal Election Commission audits, he said.

Special elections were vigorously contested, Kimball argued, and the two GOP losses are being blown out of proportion by Democrats and his opponents.

He said he mistakenly signed the Libertarian Party petition at issue, and revoked his signature a day later. The petition asked for ballot status for the party, but Kimball said he thought it was for an individual candidate seeking to get on the ballot. Libertarians typically support Republican policies, he noted.

Firing executive director Will Wrobleski last week, Kimball said, was an effort to solve “a major problem in our political efforts … It is important that as chairman I have a dynamic, loyal and experienced manager working full-time at party headquarters.”

He said he hasn't had any contact with Sununu since he became chairman.

“As far as I'm concerned, I've been there. He could have called me and talk to me. It works both ways,” Kimball said.

Kimball supporter, Rep. Susan Delemus, R-Rochester, said “I think it's important to stand with Jack. I think we should stay the course, I think we should stand strong and follow what we think is right.”

Delemus criticized Ayotte for her involvement in the effort. “I'm very disappointed with Kelly right now,” she said. “I don't think she's running this, but I think she's part of it.”