Former Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus says last week’s midterm election losses reveal a deeper problem for the GOP: the voters who turn out for Donald Trump are not the same as the voters who turn out for the Republican Party down the ballot.
Priebus made the comments during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Night in America” with host Trey Gowdy, discussing what went wrong for Republicans on Election Night and what, if anything, could have been done differently.
“Trump voters are not Republican voters,” Priebus said. “We’ve become a midterm party that can’t win and a presidential party that can’t lose.”
Priebus pointed to his own history with the party as evidence that political fortunes can shift quickly. He recalled serving as chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party during a period when the party had “nothing” and was “destroyed,” only to rebuild within four years. He described a similar turnaround at the RNC, where the party was $26 million in debt when he took over.
“I took a second mortgage out on my house to make the first payroll, and we won the House, we won the Senate, we won the presidency,” Priebus said.
Priebus also raised questions about how Republican money was spent in Texas during the midterms, saying between $200 million and $250 million was poured into the state while other races went underfunded.
“What happened was everywhere outside of Texas, we were playing with even money,” he said. “We had no cash advantage anywhere, and so those two things really made a huge difference.”
Priebus said his review of early voting and Election Day turnout data backs up his theory that Republicans are turning out people who support Trump but not the broader party. He compared Wisconsin’s 2026 results to 2022, when Ron Johnson won.
“If you looked at the total vote of 2026 and 2022, it was almost the same. Except Ron Johnson won in 2022, and we got crushed in 2026,” Priebus said. “Because to my point, we are turning out voters that are not our voters. We might be turning out what we think are Trump voters, but they weren’t buying what we were selling.”
