Republican Party: Get Diverse or Face Extinction
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Alex Wong/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — The Republican Party is giving itself somewhat of an ultimatum: improve at courting racially diverse and young voters or be condemned as a perennial loser at the national level.
That’s a core message of a comprehensive report that the Republican National Committee (RNC) will release on Monday, which proposes wholesale changes to the way the party operates in the wake of back-to-back losses in presidential elections. That includes how the party identifies and reaches out to voters, uses data and technology, raises money, conducts presidential primaries, and confronts campaign finance laws that have given rise to deep-pocketed super PACs.
But the transformation put forth by the committee is sure to encounter resistance from entrenched corners of the GOP and the conservative movement as the right looks to win back the White House.
The 100-page report, commissioned by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, is blunt about the mistakes the party has made in past elections, especially when it comes to alienating some of the fastest-growing groups in the country that have gained increasing political influence, such as Latinos, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and people under the age of 30. It offers up a road map for the GOP to shed its reputation as an “out of touch” party full of “stuffy old men” and eventually earn more votes from the aforementioned groups in national elections.
“The RNC cannot and will not write off any demographic, community, or region of this country,” Priebus plans to say Monday morning in a speech to unveil the report at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
The RNC wants to prove it’s serious about revamping its image after losing two straight presidential elections by launching a renewal project titled the “Growth and Opportunity Project.” The initiative will include a $10 million push to reach out to Hispanic, African-American, and Asian-American voters.
Party officials, including Priebus, traveled to 12 different cities over the course of three months to meet with local leaders and conduct focus groups with diverse groups of voters, in an effort to find out how the party went off track. Research included a poll of 2,000 Republican Hispanic voters, according to the report.
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