D-Day for Steele

As the balloting begins in the RNC election and incumbent chair Michael Steele fights to hold his seat, here are the key moments to watch for.

Which RNC candidates should you watch on which ballots?

Republican strategist Liz Mair and Hotline Editor in Chief Reid Wilson both have excellent curtain-raiser pieces on the odds and the pros/cons for candidates in the Republican National Committee Chairman’s race. But what will be the determinative moments for the RNC candidates – the moments to watch each candidate as their hopes either rise or collapse?

 

Reince Priebus – Wisconsin State Chair

Second, Third Round – This RNC Chair election is Reince Priebus’ to lose. Priebus is the favorite to win at this moment, with nearly forty RNC members publicly endorsing him.

Priebus will come on strong on the first ballot – perhaps even leading incumbent Chairman Michael Steele. There have been estimates of his support as high as sixty votes on the first ballot. If this happens – and it is unlikely - it appears likely that he’ll have a cakewalk to the eighty-five votes required to win the election.

But in some sense, Priebus’ long lead in public endorsements has made him a sort of incumbent – and he’s now playing the expectations game. The crucial rounds for Priebus are the second and third rounds. If he doesn’t meet expectations of initial support, or doesn’t have a trajectory towards eighty-five votes on the subsequent early rounds, Priebus will appear stalled and his supporters may be tempted to go elsewhere.

 

Saul Anuzis – National Committeeman from Michigan; Former Michigan State Chair

Final Round – There are two things to know about Saul Anuzis as it relates to the RNC race: he’s a friendly guy, and in a good number of scenarios drawn out for the RNC race, he makes it to the final ballot.

Anuzis may not be the first choice for many RNC members, but he is a very viable second choice. If Priebus stalls, where do his supporters go? If Steele’s support plummets and he figures the gig is up, who does he tell his supporters to swing behind? Anuzis appears to be an important component of the answer for both questions.

Saul Anuzis is a game-day threat. He’ll be smiling and shaking hands on the floor. He’ll be the candidate referring RNC members to that archetypal ‘time at a steakhouse in Dayton’. As in, ‘remember the time at that steakhouse in Dayton when you made that joke and I choked on my Budweiser?’

If he makes it to the final ballot, all bets are off.

 

Maria Cino – Former RNC Deputy Chair; Former CEO, 2008 Republican National Convention

Second Round – Maria Cino has about as much support as fellow candidates Saul Anuzis and Ann Wagner, but questions have been raised about whether she has bedrock support among those who have publicly endorsed her.

Speaker John Boehner’s recent unprecedented endorsement of Maria Cino – first reported by FrumForum - seems to have given her some wind in her sails as we enter the RNC elections Friday. But how much momentum will that give her? We’ll find out in the first round.

If Cino wants to pull off an upset, the focus will be on survival in the first few ballots – she needs a stronger than expected start, and has to be able to retain her initial support over several rounds. If she can then prove over four or five ballots that she is in contention for 85 votes, then she has a chance.

 

Ann Wagner – Former Missouri State Chair

Third and Fourth Rounds – Ann Wagner is well liked on the Committee for her dynamism, something she showed off as co-chair of the body from 2001 to 2005. She’s well qualified, and energetic.

Wagner looks like a candidate that will make it into the later rounds of this contest. Much like Maria Cino, her efforts in the first ballots will be focused on retention rather than outright growth. This puts her in a position, then, to capitalize on a Steele collapse or a Priebus stall in the later rounds of balloting.

Ann Wagner looks like an easy bet to make it into the last three candidates standing. But will she be able to capitalize on later-ballot drop-outs? The answer to that question will determine whether she can make a strike at the magic number of 85 votes.

 

Michael Steele – Incumbent RNC Chairman

First Round – Michael Steele is praying for a miracle, one that looks terribly unlikely to occur. The incumbent RNC chairman has presided over an irrefutably controversial tenure – and most RNC members aren’t willing to give him a second chance.

If Steele has even the slightest chance of winning, it will be if he surprises all of us on the first ballot with massive support. Expect his vote count to bleed out round after round as his supporters look for a candidate more likely to win.

As FrumForum has reported, Steele’s publicly-asserted campaign strategy will be to hang on until the very end, refusing to drop out on any ballot until a winner is decided. “He’s in it to win it… he is going to be in this election right until the end,” said his campaign chair Holly Hughes.

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