Rhode Island Republican Party election losses, Digi Mart USA News: The leader of Rhode Island’s Republican Party is not taking the blame for an election wipeout on Tuesday. In a press release issued Friday, party Chairman Allyn Meyers pointed out that he has not been in the role long, having taken over in late January.
“I didn’t get to choose the starting line,” Meyers wrote. “I took over a party that was broke, that had been absent, and that had very few candidates on the field, with the election already underway.
My administration’s job was to stop the bleeding, steady the ship, and put every dollar we could behind the candidates we had. That’s what we did.
We raised a remarkable amount of money from donors, which we used to fund candidates and get out the vote.”
While Democrats won big across the country on Tuesday, taking control of Congress, Republican losses are nothing new in Rhode Island. Democrats swept all the state general officer and congressional seats, as they have since 2014, and no Republican candidate came close to winning this time around.
The last time a Republican won statewide office in Rhode Island was Gov. Don Carcieri in 2006.
Republicans also lost ground in the state legislature on Tuesday, dropping two of their four seats in the Rhode Island Senate and two of their 10 seats in the House.
The party’s press release states that Meyers was elected chairman mid-election cycle after the previous chair’s unexpected resignation. He inherited a party operating under austerity, with depleted finances and very few candidates in the pipeline.
The party’s statewide candidates were already in place before he took office, and with the cycle well underway, there was no runway to recruit a full slate. Instead, the party focused on viable seats and protecting incumbents.
While Rhode Island Republicans lost seats in the House and Senate, their nationwide losses were among the lowest tier in the country.
The losses have led to some finger pointing among Republicans about what went wrong. “Rebuilding a party is not a one-cycle job,” Meyers wrote.
“A year ago this party had no money and no momentum. Today it has stable finances, a bigger donor base, more people volunteering, and a chairman who will be here for the long haul.
Tuesday’s results show how much work remains. The foundation laid this year tells us we can do it.
Candidate recruitment for 2028 has already begun.”
