NRCC Chairman Steve Stivers: It’s My Job To Keep The GOP Majority To Make A Difference For Americans
National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Congressman Steve Stivers joined MSNBC’s MTP Daily yesterday to discuss the Alabama Senate race, and how he plans to keep the Republican majority to better the lives of the American people.
CHUCK TODD: Joining me now, Congressman Steve Stivers. He’s the Republican of Ohio, but he’s also Chairman of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee – translation – he’s the point man in charge of keeping Paul Ryan Speaker of the House. Congressman Stivers, welcome back to the show, sir.
NRCC CHAIRMAN REP. STEVE STIVERS: Great to be back, Chuck.
TODD: Alright, let me start with a basic question. Why – I’ve noticed a lot of people are looking at Alabama saying, “You know what? That was a Roy Moore problem, not a Donald Trump problem.” But do you look at a 48% job approval rating in deep red Alabama and say to yourself, “Ooh, this could be a Donald Trump problem for Republicans across the country?”
REP. STIVERS: Well, Chuck, this was mostly a Roy Moore problem, because campaigns are about candidates, they’re about the campaign you run, and the fundraising that you have. And Roy Moore was a bad candidate; he was accused of very serious misdeeds – sexual misconduct. He ran a bad campaign. He wasn’t talking about the things the people of Alabama wanted to talk about and frankly he got out-raised. You can’t lose all of those things. You might be able to be down on one and up on the other two if you want to win. This was mostly a Roy Moore problem. You know, the question was, “Could the President save him?” And the President’s numbers are at 48-48, he couldn’t save him. But he, I don’t think the President cost him the election, but the President couldn’t all by himself save Roy Moore from having a bad campaign, being a bad candidate, and having bad fundraising.
TODD: Alright, look, everybody is looking for some sort of nugget to figure out what in 2017 have we learned that will tell us something about 2018. I understand it’s only a handful of races, but there is a pattern here. Whether it was KS-4, the Montana special, Georgia, South Carolina. Then you had the general election of Virginia and New Jersey, and then had you Alabama. Now, the good news for you is your committee still won all those races I pointed out, but if you look –
REP. STIVERS: We’re 5-0, Chuck.
TODD: Right. However, in every one of those places, Democrats over-performed, Republicans under-performed, and by November and December, those under-performances turned into Democratic victories. Is this a canary in the coal mine that you’re concerned about?
REP. STIVERS: Well, we are making preparations and we’re trying to make sure we’re ready, but I don’t think that we can overestimate both Virginia and Alabama. Virginia was a blue state, it got a little bluer and Alabama was a Roy Moore problem. You know, campaigns are about three things, like I said. They’re about the candidate, they’re about the campaign you run, and they’re about money. And in those special elections, I told my team, I don’t want to buy blowouts. So, as long as we’re outside the margin of error, like we were in Utah, like we were – and by the way, in Utah we exceeded the margin of the district.
TODD: Okay.
REP. STIVERS: That was just a few weeks ago. The one that went unnoticed of our five, but in both – both South Dakota –
TODD: South Carolina.
REP. STIVERS: Excuse me, South Carolina and Utah we didn’t have to do much, but in the races where we did get involved, we got involved in Kansas, Montana, and Georgia, we didn’t buy blowouts, but we bought victories, and that’s what we need to do. And we have them on defense in Minnesota. We have them on defense in Nevada. We have them on defense in Arizona. I feel pretty confident. You know, right now there’s five Democrat retirements of competitive districts, five Republican retirements in competitive districts. The difference is, in our retirements, we have great candidates like Dino Rossi, who raised $1 million in 20 days. And frankly, they’ve got lackluster candidates. And we’re going to pick up Tim Walz’s seat and I think we’re going to pick up a few of the others.
TODD: What’s the NRCC position on primaries? I know you’re always with incumbents. I’m curious if there’s ever an exception on an incumbent front? Is there any exception? Would Blake Farenthold be an exception on the incumbent front, for instance?
REP. STIVERS: Well, if we were in a position where somebody had a very serious misdeed and there was a – there was credible evidence. Right now, there is an ethics investigation going on, on Blake Farenthold. You know, I’ve never been shy about providing leadership and I would provide leadership in those cases. I publicly asked Roy Moore to step aside, and, you know, I won’t be shy to ask our folks, where there are allegations that are serious that come forward to step aside. So –
TODD: So, Blake Farenthold shouldn’t assume he’s got guaranteed NRCC support yet until this ethics investigation is done?
REP. STIVERS: Until the facts come out. That’s correct.
TODD: Let me ask you about open primaries. You’re going to have – you have a lot of interest groups that want to mess around in primaries. Is the NRCC going to try to pick candidates in primaries? Are you always going to stay out, or do you have a hard and fast rule?
REP. STIVERS: The NRCC has a policy of staying out of open seat primaries. There are a lot of people around town that get involved in open seat primaries. My job is to hold our incumbents, whether they have a tough primary or a tough general election. And so far, we’ve been able to do that. In the last few cycles, we haven’t had many incumbents beat in primaries and we’ve had not many incumbents beat in general elections. My goal is to try to make sure we hold our majority and continue to make a difference for the American people. Like the tax reform bill that we’re going to get done, that I think will grow the economy. It will put pressure on wages and increase people’s salaries and grow our economy. And I think it’s going to be a big victory and I know that there are a lot of naysayers out there, but when people see the impact of this on the economy, I feel pretty confident we’re going to be able to run on the economy in 2018, Chuck.
TODD: Steve Bannon – asset or liability for Republicans in 2018?
REP. STIVERS: Well that depends if you’re in a primary or general election.
TODD: So it sounds like you think he’s more of an asset in a primary, and more of a liability in a general election?
REP. STIVERS: He’s definitely an asset in some primaries, and, you know, he can be an asset or a liability depending on your district, Chuck. We’ve got to have candidates that match their districts. He can be an asset in some and a liability in others.
TODD: Congressman Steve Stivers, Republican from Ohio, man in charge of the House Republican campaign arm. Thanks for coming on and sharing your views, sir.
STIVERS: Hey, thanks, Chuck.