“If we’re going to be the majority party – which I think we’ll do – you have to accept that we’re a big tent,” LaHood said, adding that Republicans in Peoria, Illinois, are different from those in Florida. , New York or California. “I tried to adopt the philosophy and the attitude of it is how we will become the majority party.”
He added: “I look at our freshman class that has just come in, and that diversity is what we need to build.”
Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) And eight other House Republicans who broke up with their party last month to support Trump’s second indictment chanted reprimands from their own ranks and awaited the got party officials. The GOP embrace of – or distance from – Trump has created a national rift for the party. But LaHood, who received Trump’s approval last year but did not want to criticize his colleagues in the House, made it divisive.
LaHood did not directly address the divisions over Trump within the party, but acknowledged: “a lot is at stake.”
Republicans are just a handful of seats away from House control, and when asked if the NRCC would fund re-election campaigns of the ten Republicans who voted for accusation, LaHood said ‘absolutely’.
He said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and NRCC Chairman Tom Emmer had asked him to step into the role, “and I’m proud to work with them and the rest of our team. , including [Reps.] Liz Cheney and Steve Scalise. ‘
LaHood said he had not yet spoken to Kinzinger – who had started a PAC to fight Trumpism in the GOP and had regularly denounced the former president since the January 6 attack on the US Capitol – and that he his fellow Republican in Illinois largely avoided. The NRCC also has a long-standing policy of staying out of the primaries and only supporting whoever Republican voters vote for in the general election.
The approach to the NRCC concert gave LaHood, the son of President Barack Obama’s first secretary of state, Ray LaHood, a Republican, another headline: he did not rule out a possible chance for governor of Illinois.
But for now, he said, he is focusing on raising money for the IDP. The congressman is a capable fundraiser, with more than $ 3.5 million in the bank – a significant amount for a Republican in a deep blue state. He also hosted the NRCC’s Spring Dinner for 2019, the largest annual fundraiser for the organization.
‘The fact that we have not lost a single incumbent [in 2020] ‘incredible, and then to pick up all the seats we did, so our job at the NRCC is to protect our incumbents, and the money we help raise will go for that,’ LaHood said.
The NRCC also has Rep. Carol Miller of West Virginia appointed to lead the group’s recruitment efforts.
LaHood, a former federal prosecutor, considers Trump a friend. He serves as co-chair of Trump’s re-election offer and serves as his delegate.
Earlier this week, the NRCC released a list of 47 House Democrats they hope to see next year.
Emmer says the aim will be to talk about what ordinary voters care about, such as the reopening of schools. He rejected the Democrats’ strategy to link Republicans to the QAnon conspiracy theory and everything related to the Capitol riots.
Midterm elections have historically been a test for the party in power, and LaHood is banking that ‘will be good news for us’.