Time for new leadership at the RNC after three straight failed elections

OPINION:

It’s starting to look like maybe — just maybe — the Republican Party might be having trouble getting their candidates elected.

Spitballing here, but let’s consider a few obvious facts.

We have the worst inflation in 40 years — perhaps in American history when you consider how dishonestly the federal government calculates inflation.

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates to their highest in decades so that consumers and homeowners get punished for the reckless spending by Democrats in Washington. (Maybe you stupid, poor taxpayers should have hired the same army of high-powered lobbyists that Wall Street hired to get big banks bailed out back in 2008. Duh!)

In cities across the country run by Democrats, innocent American citizens now suffer double-digit spikes in horrific crimes.

Gas prices shot skyward after President Biden eviscerated U.S. energy production. Also, as a result of Mr. Biden’s energy policies, Russian President Vladimir Putin got so rich that he launched a war in Ukraine, and Europeans are back to heating their homes with firewood and coal.

Here at home, there is an unchecked invasion at the southern border.

In other words, Americans are poorer than they have been in decades. Families are more at risk of violent crime. And the nation is weaker.

Every single one of these issues — inflation, the open border, crime — hits voters in the most personal and profound ways. And every single one of these issues is the direct result of the explicit policies of Mr. Biden and other Democratic politicians in Washington.

Yet somehow, in the most hostile environment incumbent Democrats have ever faced, Republicans could not close the deal with the voters to put them in charge.

They squeaked by to take the narrowest control of the House of Representatives. They LOST a seat in the Senate. Democrats picked up a seat in Pennsylvania with a stroke victim who cannot complete a basic sentence.

And then this week, Republicans failed to win a Senate seat in Georgia, which is a Republican state where the Republican governor just won reelection last month by more than 7 percentage points. Miraculously, the Republican state of Georgia is represented by two Democrats in the Senate.

Republicans had just one job in this week’s runoff. And yet Republicans failed. Again.

It is all former President Donald Trump’s fault, Republican leaders say.

Because Mr. Trump is the only Republican to win the White House in nearly two decades? Because Mr. Trump won more votes than any Republican in history? Because Mr. Trump is the only Republican to identify issues that were so important to voters that many Democratic voters switched parties to support him?

No. It’s all Mr. Trump’s fault, they say, because Mr. Trump picks bad candidates. Like the one who just lost in Georgia and the one who lost to the stroke victim in Pennsylvania.

But it is the Republican Party leadership that is responsible for persuading their own voters to support their preferred candidates. And that’s a pretty low bar.

So, how is it Mr. Trump’s fault that Republican Party leadership is so terrible at their job that they cannot pick candidates who can win Republican primaries — let alone general elections?

Now, RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel believes that after her THIRD disastrously failed election, she should be returned to the helm of the Republican National Committee. And apparently, there are a significant number of RNC members who do not think a change in leadership is needed. 

Truly, Washington is the only town where failure is never punished. Just ask Mr. Biden. And the Republican Party.

• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.