Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel addressed GOP midterm election performance on Sunday’s “Cats Roundtable” radio show, attributing some losses to candidates ignoring the abortion argument.
“It was probably a bigger factor than a lot of people thought,” McDaniel told host John Catsimatidis of abortion during the midterms. “We’ve got to get conversant on that.”
She added, “We can’t just do an ostrich method and pretend that it doesn’t exist when Democrats are spending $30 million on that message.”
McDaniel said that abortion was a “huge issue” in Pennsylvania, one state where Republicans took a significant loss when Senate candidate Mehmet Oz (R) came in behind Sen.-elect John Fetterman (D).
The political strategist, who is up for reelection in January, also discussed divisiveness, saying it was an issue holding the GOP back.
“We can’t hate each other so much that we forget what the Democrats are doing to this country,” she said.
McDaniel encouraged Republicans to vote Republican down the ballot rather than deciding on their votes based on the specific candidate.
“We can’t be so mad at each other that we say, ‘I’m not going to vote for this Republican because they like this candidate or they’re a RINO or establishment or MAGA,’” said the chairwoman.
Reeling from the loss of the Georgia Senate seat by candidate Herschel Walker (R) on Tuesday, McDaniel called on the GOP to “come together because the Democrats are destroying our country.”
“Unity is going to be the word of the day if we’re going to win in 2023 and 2024,” she said.
“But if we have infighting no one is attracted to our party,” she added.