Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said the party is working on technology that will allow it to overcome the gap it currently has with Democrats, but cautioned the transition will likely occur in phases.
In an interview with Newsmax TV, Priebus said campaign finance laws limit what the RNC itself can do to help its candidates better embrace technology, which makes it harder to compete with well-financed Democratic challengers.
Story continues below video.
“The Obama campaign developed software on its own, but we have to take limited money and compete with that because only the hard money committee can share that kind of technology with the candidate. There’s no magic Facebook button he had and we didn’t,” he said. “By early 2015, we will have [a system] that will help us win in the coming years.”
Priebus said the committee’s finances have come a long way since he assumed the helm of the RNC in January 2011.
“When I walked into the RNC, our credit cards were suspended for nonpayment, while the other side was spending $150 million on data,” Priebus said. “The RNC is not competing against DNC, it is taking on [Democrats as a whole], which is a big burden. We need to establish a legal platform so the hard money committee can share data with a group like the RNC.”
When it comes to putting the party back on a winning track, Priebus believes that’s best done by returning to issues that originally drew voters to the party, as well as better articulating the value of Republican economic principles.
“I think we need to start talking about school choice and giving more people options to send their kids to private schools. Those are things we used to talk about . . . choices and upward mobility,” Priebus said. “We need to go into communities and explain what that means. We can win the argument on jobs and the economy, but voters have to like the candidates, too.”
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.