As they regroup from their substantial losses in last Tuesday’s election, House Republicans this week will select who will head their party’s effort to reclaim the majority it surrendered to the Democrats, who registered their largest House gains since the Watergate era.
New York Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds is stepping down after his two-term limit as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), and House Republicans on Nov. 17 will choose among three prospective successors: Reps. Tom Cole of Oklahoma; Phil English of Pennsylvania; and Pete Sessions of Texas. All three have been campaigning for months.
The new chairman will not have an easy task. If the party that is presently leading in each of the nine uncalled races emerges victorious — and if the two parties split a pair of runoffs in Louisiana and Texas next month — the next NRCC chairman will begin his term with 203 Republican seats, or 15 less than the majority.
All three candidates pointed to their fundraising prowess and leadership positions at the NRCC in this and previous election cycles — and to personal political histories they said make them well-qualified to chair the House campaign effort.
Cole has served as a state chairman and executive director of the Oklahoma Republican Party; as a successful political consultant; and as executive director of the NRCC (1991-93) and chief of staff to the RNC (1999-2001).
“I have spent my adult life running political organizations and winning political campaigns,” Cole wrote Nov. 9 to House Republican members.
English pointed to his success in a politically competitive northwest Pennsylvania district, centered in Erie, that re-elected him Tuesday despite also overwhelmingly backing Democratic nominees for governor and senator in what was a dismal year for the GOP in his state. He also is a former campaign operative in Pennsylvania.
“The next chairman will have to have a history of fighting and winning difficult elections, in difficult districts, even while being outspent in many cases,” English wrote Nov. 9. “It is in precisely this environment that I excel.”
Sessions has worn many hats as a candidates for Congress: as a losing challenger (in 1994); an open-seat candidate (in 1996); an incumbent targeted by Democrats (in 2000); and as an incumbent member who defeated another incumbent (in 2004, against Democrat Martin Frost, following a redrawing of district lines the previous year).
A more robust candidate recruitment effort stands out as a major area of improvement for the incoming NRCC chief. The House Democratic campaign committee fielded many politically experienced and well-funded candidates who were well-equipped to challenge Republican incumbents and compete for open seats that GOP incumbents had left open to retire or seek other office.
If Democratic Rep. John Barrow retains his narrow lead in Georgia’s 12th District, as is expected, then Republicans will have failed to defeat a single Democratic incumbent or win a Democratic-defended open seat this cycle.
Only in Georgia’s 12th and in Georgia’s 8th District — where Democratic Rep. Jim Marshall narrowly won re-election — did a Republican challenger come within 5 percentage points of the Democratic victor.
“The Democrat margin that we see today began with outstanding candidate recruitment,” Sessions wrote. “We need to revitalize this basic aspect of political organization at the NRCC and expand the playing field to put Democrat incumbents on the defensive in more races in 2008, particularly in districts with newly-elected ‘wave’ Democrats and in ‘red’ districts that support Republicans in other races but have long elected a Democratic member.”
Cole noted that the 2008 House campaign will coincide with a presidential election that will spawn a much higher voter turnout than in a midterm election year. Many Democratic incumbents in 2008 will have to defend the performance of the newly ascendant Democratic House majority — and in districts that are likely to vote for the GOP presidential nominee.
Twenty Democratic freshmen represent districts that voted for Bush in 2004 — more than the net number of districts that the Republicans would need to win to regain the majority.
“We will not play defense. We will go on offense against the Democrats in every way possible and at every available opportunity,” Cole wrote.
