RNC Short on Voter Turnout Funds
Politico reports that Republican Governors Association Chairman Haley Barbour has had to cover a shortfall in RNC funds for voter turnout efforts:
Mississippi Gov. and Republican Governors Association Chairman Haley Barbour said Wednesday that the RNC’s financial difficulties had forced him to direct millions of dollars to voter turnout programs that are typically funded by the national party.
In his most candid public assessment to date about what the Republican National Committee’s cash crunch meant for gubernatorial races, Barbour hung a price tag on the woes of the beleaguered party he once chaired.
“We have to come up with about $10 million that normally would have been pushed into the governors races in various directions, largely through state parties," Barbour said at a press breakfast in Washington, addressing what he called “the impact” of the national party’s deficiencies.
With about $5 million in the bank and at least $2 million in debt, the RNC is not going to be able to fund such paid get-out-the-vote activities as direct mail and robocalls for gubernatorial and Senate races. Instead, the national party is focused on using its limited resources to assist GOP candidates in targeted House races, which are more inexpensive, with turnout efforts.
That means Barbour’s RGA and the National Republican Senatorial Committee are now raising money not only for TV commercials but also for the field activities that historically were funded by the state parties with cash from the national committee.
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