Reince Priebus confirmed Tuesday his candidacy for a third term as Republican National Committee chairman, citing unfinished business in an overhaul of party operations that he launched two years ago.
Priebus, during a brief telephone interview with the Washington Examiner, said he has more work to do to get the committee’s new digital voter turnout program ready for the 2016 presidential campaign. The chairman said he also wants to ensure that the party follows through with structural changes to the GOP presidential primary process that he secured amid some internal objections.
“The party, the base and the donors bought into this national party rebuilding project,” Priebus said. “I think it would be very poor form to walk away midway through.”
Priebus enjoys broad support for another two-year term at the helm of the RNC. He is expected to be re-elected when party delegates meet in San Diego in January for their annual winter meeting.
The unwieldy 2012 GOP presidential primary featured around 20 nationally televised debates; and the contest dragged on until spring, when Mitt Romney finally defeated the last of a series of weaker candidates to earn a majority of nominating delegates. Priebus would later refer to that campaign as a damaging embarrassment. He pushed for changes to party rules that bring the debates under GOP control and truncated the primary calendar.
Priebus also moved up the date of the GOP nominating convention, from around Labor Day to mid July.
“Not seeing it through, and not making sure those major accomplishments come to fruition, would be problematic. Not everyone agrees with me,” Priebus said. “It’s possible, if I didn’t stick around, that some of those things might go by the wayside and I don’t think that’s helpful to the nomination process.”
Priebus took over the committee following the 2010 elections (during which he served as Wisconsin GOP chairman) that, while successful for the GOP, saw the RNC’s fundraising atrophy. Priebus solved that problem. But following losses in 2012 at the hands of President Obama and his unmatched data operation, took on the task of bringing the GOP’s get-out-the-vote effort into the 21st Century.
That effort is credited, at least partly, for the GOP’s historic success in 2014. Priebus said, however, that making the program is far from presidential-ready, and that much work remains to get it there. Winning the White House is the ultimate prize, he said.
“It would be a big mistake to assume, that just because we did well in a midterm it automatically extends to a presidential,” Priebus said.
