WASHINGTON ― Ohio Republican Steve Stivers cruised to victory Tuesday to become the next chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, beating out Texas Republican Roger Williams to take over the campaign arm of House Republicans.
Stivers won the internal GOP election, 143-96, by personally sitting down with more than 200 Republican members and not letting up on the current “dues” structure that strongly encourages members to give to the NRCC. (Williams was campaigning on a message that Republicans ought to focus less on raising money internally and more on building a larger donor network. “He wants to cash flow from within the membership; we need to cash flow from outside the membership,” Williams told The Huffington Post on Monday night.)
But the challenge of the next NRCC chairman will be much larger than just closing a fundraising gap of about $30 million between Democrats and Republicans. GOP candidate Donald Trump is set to take the presidency and Republicans hold both chambers of Congress, but 2018 could bring a setback for the GOP if lawmakers can’t deliver on his nebulous promise to “make America great again.”
Generally, the party that does not hold the presidency does well in midterm elections, so Republicans will fight to buck that historic trend. But Stivers suggested to HuffPost on Tuesday that Republicans weren’t going to run away from Trump.
“We’re going to work with the new president to accomplish an agenda the American people want and like, and that’s how we’re going to get our people elected,” the new NRCC chairman said.
When HuffPost raised the possibility that Trump supporters had high expectations and other voters might have some uneasiness about Trump, Stivers again suggested that Republicans weren’t going to distance themselves.
“We have a job to do, and we need to make sure we deliver, and then hopefully it’ll all work out,” he said. “But I believe the best politics is good policy. So we need to help make America better and stronger, better economy for jobs. We have to strengthen our national security, and we’ve got to focus on issues that matter to voters.”
Republicans seem to be increasingly embracing Trump. On Tuesday, the GOP conference started its day off by giving each Republican a “Make America great again” hat, and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) had no criticism for the president-elect’s selection of Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News, as a senior adviser in the administration.
Part of the reason Republicans might seem more willing to accept Trump is that he wasn’t the drag they expected in their races. Some Republicans even believe they rode his coattails to victory.
That could all change quickly, of course, particularly if things go as badly as most Democrats expect. For now, however, the GOP strategy for 2018 seems to be to run on the results of a Trump administration, not away from them.
When HuffPost caught up with the outgoing NRCC chairman on Tuesday, Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, he noted that Trump simply didn’t have “an adverse effect” on Republicans in this election.
“I don’t know how many times I was asked about the down-ballot effect of Donald Trump,” Walden said, “and how many times I said, ‘We don’t see it in the data.’ And I’d say, ‘Show me the up-ballot lift of Hillary Clinton.’ Because what we saw in the data was she was a drag on Democrats.”
Walden acknowledged that Republicans lost some ground in early and mid-October after Trump’s 2005 comments about forcibly grabbing and kissing women surfaced. But Walden said those numbers soon stabilized and Republicans worked their way back.
Walden also seemed bullish on Republicans running on their record with a Trump administration.
“I think you’re going to see, as a team, that we’re going to get the work done that people expect us to get done.”
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