RNC Optimistic About 2020 Despite Large Number of GOP Retirements

Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel of the Republican National Committee speaks in support of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Josh Hawley during a campaign stop at the MOGOP field Office in St. Louis, Missouri. on Nov. 5, 2018. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Even with three times the number of Republicans vacating their congressional seats compared to Democrats and the President under inquiry for possible impeachment, Republicans are confident they can keep the vacating seats red.

At last count, 19 Republican House members and 4 Senators are retiring in 2020, with a few seeking candidacy for other offices, as compared to just 8 Democrats in the House and 1 in the Senate leaving Congress. This is similar to a trend in 2018 when over two dozen Republicans retired and the House flipped in the Democrats’ favor.

In 2018, GOP retirements were in more competitive, mainly suburban districts that gave Democrats control of the House. This time around, the lawmakers that are leaving are in “safe” red districts.

“Retirements in safe Republican seats like these have no impact on battleground seats,” said Bob Salera, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. He noted the Democrats’ socialist agendas of the Green New Deal and Medicare For All as being the main policy mistakes that will cause them to lose in 2020.

Republicans Can Hold Texas

The Democrats are eyeing Texas because there are six GOP Representatives retiring in 2020, the same number from 2018.

The Texas Congressional delegation consists of 36 members, with 23 Republicans and 13 Democrats. The state’s senators are both Republican and the Republican Party has held the state for the last ten presidential elections.

Republican Party of Texas Chairman James Dickey told the Epoch Times, “This was the case the last cycle but I did tell the members that if they were thinking of retiring to please tell us as soon as possible so we can get a running start with new candidates and we were able to file for all the candidates before the 30-day cut off period.”

Chairman Dickey was certain the outgoing seats would remain red and he was “cautiously optimistic” that the GOP may be able to take a couple of seats back from Democrats.

Congressman John Carter (R-Texas) told The Epoch Times that he is optimistic about taking back the House in 2020.

“If anything, the Democrats have energized the Republican base with the impeachment inquiry, their socialist agenda, and the fact that they haven’t accomplished anything for the American people since they took control of the House. Americans care about the issues that are impacting their family every day—rising prescription drug prices, the economy, taxes. Democrats have failed to make any progress on these issues, and instead, have decided to focus all of their energy on impeachment and obstruction.”

Dickey reiterated Carter’s opinion when the Texas Democrat Party announced their plan to turn Texas blue.

“While Texas Democrats have just announced their plan to turn Texas blue, we have been employing our plan to keep Texas Red for months. Texas Republicans have already deployed a skilled field team throughout the state. We have unprecedented investment in all aspects of voter registration, mobilization, and turnout. The state party is breaking fundraising records and we are investing those funds in data, systems, training, and the largest Get Out The Vote (GOTV) effort Texas has ever seen. We will continue fighting hard to ensure Texans turn out to vote for the values that have made our state such an incredible place to live.”

“Through their plan, the Texas Democrats made it extremely clear that their goal is to turn Texas into a copy of California—from which so many voters have fled because of its liberal mismanagement and high taxes. Texans don’t want those failed policies here.”

“Extremism from the left has motivated Republicans in Texas and throughout the country,” Dickey said.

Speaker Pelosi was quoted as saying, “Texas is our hope for the future. When Texas goes blue and people have to pay attention to everything that happens here and the views of people here, that’s going to be very, very wholesome for our nation.”

Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee Ronna McDaniels replied to the Pelosi comment by telling Martha MacCallum of Fox News, “I am very comfortable about where we stand in Texas. I’ve seen the president’s numbers. Governor Abbott won overwhelmingly, John Cornyn is going to run a great race. Listen, Democrats want to turn everything in their favor, they’ve talked about getting rid of the Electoral College, changing the voting age to 16, stacking the Supreme Court, and now they’re trying to overturn an election through Congress through this ridiculous impeachment inquiry.”

RNC Plan to Expand Their Reach

McDaniels spoke to Fox News’ Bill Hemmer on Nov. 8, and he asked what made the difference in winning the Senate seats.

“The difference was 2 words, Donald Trump. President Trump with these rallies, going to the States. I was with them in Missouri and Cape Gerardo that last night, there was no way we were going to lose Missouri, I saw the intensity, I saw the energy. When you feel it on the ground, you see how the state’s going. President Trump was our best campaigner he closed a lot of these tight races and that’s why we flipped 4 seats that were held by Democrat incumbents.”

McDaniels addressed how the Republican Party can reach areas like the suburbs of, Dallas and Houston Texas, West Chicago, outside Washington, and Kansas City where they have not done well in the past.

“We gotta work on the suburbs we’ve gotta talk to them more about the economic results, what it means to have 4 million new jobs. I think having this contrast of Nancy Pelosi being in the House and seeing how ineffective they are. And if they take the investigation route and they choose not to legislate, I think we‘ll have a really good way to go to these voters and ’say see what we delivered, and see what they’re obstructing again.’”

Hemmer pointed out that some districts doing well under Trump still did not vote for Republicans. And asked how the Republicans could reach these voters.

“Voters don’t always vote because things are going well, they have to have that contrast so when they see that those things may go away, and that Democrats are pushing for things that are going to help jobs come back to this country and wages go up and they’re trying to obstruct the Trump agenda. I think that will help make a better contrast, there’s other great things the president’s talk[ing] about, prison reform, talk about paid leave, those are going to be things that those voters are going to be looking at as those policies go forward.”

For the areas that were previously Republican, but turned blue recently, McDaniel’s suggested going back and looking at the information about those districts and realigning the message to help people understand how jobs and wages have improved under Trump.

“What I’m gonna say to Nancy Pelosi is we’re coming for these Democrats in districts are President Trump won we are starting and we are going to run ad campaigns…we’re going to put pressure on these Democrats cause we’re going to take back the House, keep the Senate and re-elect this president,” McDaniel’s added.

Chairwoman McDaniels told Fox News that Republicans fully back Trump, and any news to the contrary is not true. “The president still enjoys unprecedented support with our party, over 90 percent, 94 percent of Republicans support this president.”

There is money backing Chairwoman McDaniels’ words, with the money raised by the RNC and Trump in the third quarter far surpassing the Democrats.

“The @GOP and @realDonaldTrump campaign brought in 125 million!!! @GOPChairwoman has been killing it. She’s a great partner as we go on to win 4 more years,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale wrote on Twitter, referring to RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.

In another tweet, Parscale confirmed that the campaign had raised $308 million in 2019 and had $156 million in cash on hand, which is double the amount the Obama campaign had on hand at this point in 2011.

“I think that what the Democrats have done overall is negative for our country, but for Republicans, it’s energized our base. We raised over 15 million dollars since this started. We’re seeing a massive enthusiasm, our volunteers are energized,” said McDaniel.