The Republican Governors Association is taking heat for failing to unearth damaging information on Gov. Ralph Northam that might have derailed the Virginia Democrat’s 2017 campaign.
The GOP gubernatorial campaign of Republican Ed Gillespie outsourced the expensive, specialized work of digging into Northam’s past to the RGA. Some Republican insiders blame the RGA for missing a decades-old medical school yearbook as part of the opposition research it conducted on Northam.
The RGA had both the resources and the manpower to conduct a robust opposition research effort. The RGA raised $180.3 million combined in 2017 and 2018 — a record haul for a two-year election cycle — and some Republicans say it is political malpractice that the group’s eight-man research department didn’t discover the racist material that threatens to drive Northam from office.
And what some political strategists characterize as an egregious miss occurred during an off year when the RGA had few other campaigns to deal with and could focus intently on the Virginia race.
Todd Johnson, a veteran and highly respected Republican operative, led the RGA oppo research team. In a move planned before the Northam revelations, Johnson decided to leave the post and will be replaced by his deputy, Yaron Eisenberg.
Some veteran Republican strategists say Gillespie himself and his campaign are not without blame. They argue that assuming a more active role in the oppo research effort might have improved Gillespie’s chances of finding the photograph of one man in blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan garb that was published on Northam’s personal page in the 1984 edition of the Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook.
“The RGA decided it would do the research for the campaign,” a top Virginia Republican said, requesting anonymity in order to speak candidly. “But the [Gillespie] campaign manager [Chris Leavitt] has to take some responsibility.”
The RGA has not commented on the matter and declined Monday to issue a statement to the Washington Examiner. Sources familiar with how the RGA and the Gillespie campaign operated during the 2017 contest, however, say the governors group has since reviewed its processes to see if there were any systemic problems.
Ultimately, the RGA concluded that this was a very bad, and potentially costly, mistake, one that it would learn from.
Gillespie did not respond to a request for comment. Leavitt declined to comment.
