The time has come for the Senate Republicans to begin thinking about what to do with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which this last cycle was run by Senator John Cornyn along with bureaucrat Rob Jesmer. Before any Republican endorses that team to go ahead and run the committee for another cycle, I urge them to consider alternatives.
The NRSC has the name and the databases to be a tremendous force for good for the party, much as the RGA was this cycle. But to do so it has to make the right decisions with those resources that it has. I submit that it could have done much better this year.
The NRSC’s scorecard:
| State | Result |
|---|---|
| CA | L – General |
| CO | L – Primary |
| DE | L – Primary |
| FL | L – Party Switch |
| IN | W |
| KY | L – Primary |
| NH | W |
| PA | L – Party Switch |
| UT | No primary position |
The Cornyn/Jesmer team went 3-5 in the primaries and 2-1 in the generals. That’s a lot of primary elections to have spent on, throwing away money that could have gone to general election winners. It’s only remarkable that they didn’t do anything in Utah, honestly.
But here’s RedState’s scorecard, where the site (and not just one writer or Erick Erickson) took a position:
| State | Result |
|---|---|
| CA | L – Primary |
| CO | L – General |
| DE | No primary position |
| FL | W |
| IN | L – Primary |
| KY | No primary position |
| NH | No primary position |
| PA | W |
| UT | W |
RedState went 4-2 in the primaries, and 3-1 in the generals. Where we as a site split (Kentucky, New Hampshire, and Delaware) the grassroots conservative pick won a general, lost a primary badly, and lost a general election badly. We picked our spots and avoided two big losses. The NRSC showed no such restraint in states like Pennsylvania and Florida.
Should he be retained at NRSC, Senator Cornyn ought to be begging for RS as a group to dictate primary strategy. We have better strategic sense than they had, with no loss in general election efficiency.