With the midterm election victory behind him, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Wednesday that the race for the GOP presidential nomination could begin in earnest as early as January.
“I think after the New Year … it’s fine if candidates get out of the blocks,” Priebus said in an interview on MSNBC. “The race to 2016 is actually good for our party,” he added.
A number of high-profile Republican officeholders already have begun positioning themselves for a 2016 run, but none have explicitly said that they would seek the nomination.
Nevertheless, the party has to win legislative accomplishments before it can win in 2016, Priebus cautioned, and that will involve working with President Obama.
“It’s important that our leaders in the legislature set forward now real achievable goals that are simple, that we can define for the American people — one, two, three, four, here are the things we’re going to do, achievable things. Work with the president, get those things done, repeat and repeat and repeat,” Priebus said. Lacking a legislative agenda and accomplishments hurt the party in its 2012 presidential election loss, Priebus explained.
And although Tuesday night’s results vindicated the RNC’s efforts in improving its minority outreach and its data programs, Priebus said, the party needed to push those efforts further.
“Where we’re at kind of like when my wife asks me about a project at home and says, ‘how are you doing?’ And I say, ‘well you know, I’m 80 percent done, and have 80 percent left to go,'” Priebus told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” hosts.
“We need to double and triple down on our field operation,” Priebus added. “We have to double down on our engagement with black and Hispanic communities across the country.”
