RNC CHAIRWOMAN RONNA MCDANIEL
WINTER MEETING 2021: GENERAL SESSION
JANUARY 8, 2021
AMELIA ISLAND, FLORIDA
REMARKS AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY
Thank you all for being here in Amelia Island, Florida! I want to begin by thanking our Co-Chair Tommy Hicks, who has been a warrior traveling this country far and wide, fighting for freedom in the battle to win over hearts and minds. He is a great partner to work with, and all of us are lucky to have him help lead our Party.
I also want to thank all of our incredible RNC staff, including: Our Finance Chairman Todd Ricketts, Our Chief of Staff Richard Walters, The dedicated Member Services Team of Mariana Herrera, Callie Estes, Sarah Valdez and Madeline Fennell. And I especially want to thank my family – my husband Patrick, and my wonderful children Abigail and Nash.
Before I begin, let me address the terrible events that took place at our U.S. Capitol this week. This committee condemned the violence that occurred in the strongest possible terms. The violence does not represent acts of patriotism, but an attack on our country and its founding principles. Our Founding Fathers established a nation of laws, not a nation of anarchy. It especially hit home with the incredibly frightening bomb scare we had at the RNC on the same day. I want to thank our amazing security team who handled the situation with professionalism and for always working tirelessly to keep us all safe. As the transition of power continues over the next two weeks, I call on individuals to respect law enforcement, law and order, and our great system of governance.
Now, when I began this journey as RNC Chairwoman four years ago, I knew I had big shoes to fill. I also knew I wanted to put my own stamp on the Party and take on big projects that would set us up for success in 2020 and beyond. It goes without saying that when all of us met this time last year, none of us could have imagined everything the coming year would throw at us.
From planning our nominating convention, not once, not twice, but three times to the countless other challenges we faced this past year, 2020 put us all to the test.Of course, the greatest challenge of all has been the loss of friends and family members to this horrific virus. Yet through it all, you never wavered in the face of adversity.
All of you stepped up to the plate and carried out our mission with conviction and because you did, we accomplished so many of the things we set out to do.
We raised the most money ever in the history of our Party. We coalesced around one platform to drive small-dollar donations by launching WinRed. Even in its infancy, WinRed has proven successful beyond our wildest dreams. We’ve raised more than $2 billion in just a year and a half with WinRed – something it took Democrats a full 14 years to do with their small dollar donation platform.
We built the largest political infrastructure ever, talking to more voters, 182 million of them, than any other campaign in history. Our data-driven ground game turned out millions more Republicans than ever, and it set the standard by which future campaigns will be judged.
One of the things I am most proud of is how we stepped up our efforts to engage minority voters and expand our party this election cycle. You can’t win votes if you don’t ask for them, and this cycle we made an unprecedented effort to meet voters where they are and invest in their communities. We opened community centers dedicated to engaging Black, Latino, and Hispanic Americans and amplifying Republicans’ winning message. The nearly 10,000 events our Trump Victory Strategic Initiatives team held this cycle included events aimed at engaging Asian Pacific Americans, Black Americans, and Hispanic Americans. We held our TVLIs in 14 difference languages including Vietnamese, Hindi, Haitian Creole, Hmong and Greek and Portuguese, just to name a few! We dovetailed our community events with an aggressive media strategy that included 2,000 bookings in black media outlets and more than 1,300 interviews for RNC officials and surrogates on Hispanic TV and radio stations across the country.
Our message clearly resonated, and the years-long investment we made was a big part of the reason why President Trump earned the highest share of minority votes for a Republican in 60 years. Over a quarter of his support in this election came from non-white voters. He significantly broadened his base among black voters – winning close to 20% of black men and more than doubling his support among black women. We saw similar trends with Hispanic voters and Asian-Americans. There is no doubt that he has redrawn the political map for our Party and proved we can compete and win in nontraditionally Republican communities.
Building on our minority engagement efforts, we also held a different kind of convention last summer that showcased a more diverse Republican Party. Americans saw that we are the Big Tent Party, a Party the President helped expand and one that now looks more like the rest of America.
While we all are disappointed about races that we lost, we also saw important wins for Republican candidates across the country. Contrary to what every political pundit in the Beltway Bubble was predicting and not so secretly hoping for, no Blue Wave materialized on Election Day.
As we learn every election, candidates matter, and in November Americans elected Republicans with compelling life stories to the House of Representatives. Young Kim and Michelle Steel were both born abroad and knew each other while raising their kids here in America. They saw firsthand how Democrat policies of high taxes combined with crippling government regulations were crushing small businesses and the American Dream in their Southern California communities. They realized they couldn’t afford to sit on the sidelines, and this week they became the first two Korean-American women to be seated in the United States Congress.
For Americans who are sick and tired of hearing about AOC and the rest of the Socialist Squad, we have good news.That’s because we have now have our own squad, the freedom squad, made up of people who know firsthand the perils of socialism in practice.People like Nicole Malliotakis, Carlos Gimenez, Maria Salazar and Victoria Spartz, who will be on the frontlines defending freedom and standing up to Speaker Pelosi’s extreme agenda every single day.
It’s also especially fitting and a point of pride for me that in the year we celebrated the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote – a cause championed by Republicans – our country voted to send a record number of Republican women to Congress. These reasons give me every cause to be confident and optimistic about the future of our Party as we begin a new year. Yet, while we were encouraged by our track record in competitive House and other down ballot races, we are certainly disappointed with results elsewhere. I’ve said it a few times this week, but I am pissed about losing in critical elections.
We have a lot of hard work to do to take back the Senate and the House in 2022, but I am telling you right now it must happen and I am committed to getting it done. We are not going to cede our country to the far-left who want to turn us toward socialism, institute a Green New Deal, and remake America as we know it. So, get ready, buckle your seatbelt, we have much more to accomplish.
Before I end, I want to say how proud I am to serve in this role as RNC Chairman at this pivotal point in our nation’s history. RNC Chairs have included governors, Speakers of the House, Senators and even a future President. I will always be grateful to President Trump and all of you for believing in me and giving me this opportunity of a lifetime. I love the RNC and everything it stands for. The RNC is the steady ship in the storm, and we are there for our candidates when they need us. It is now up to us to keep the ship on course, and together we are building an institution that is stronger than ever.
I also love the opportunity to work with each and every one of you. People who take on the sacrifices being an RNC Member entails, and do it joyfully because you believe in all your heart the causes and values we are fighting for.
Most of all, I love the RNC because it gives me an opportunity in some small way to give back to the country we all love. And because this land of liberty we are lucky to call home is still worth fighting for, let us not grow weary in doing good as Scripture teaches, for in due time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Thank you again for being willing to step up and serve as RNC Members.May God Bless you and your families, and may God continue to bless the United States America.
