NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A draft of a report examining the Republican Party\u2019s struggles in last year\u2019s\u00a0midterm elections\u00a0says the results show that voters aren\u2019t interested in \u201crelitigating previous elections\u201d and that failing to heed those warnings could harm the GOP in 2024 and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The draft notably does not mention former President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0by name, but alludes to the controversial, far-right candidates he endorsed who went on to lose. That includes many who echoed the former president\u2019s\u00a0lies about a stolen 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe cannot afford to ignore the obvious lessons of the 2022 election cycle,\u201d the report\u2019s introduction reads. \u201cThe Republican candidates in 2022 who delivered results and had a vision for the future did much, much better than those stuck in the past and rehashing old grievances.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The draft also says that Republicans \u201cunderestimated the impact\u201d of the\u00a0Supreme Court\u2019s overturning of Roe v. Wade\u00a0in the months before the midterms, a landmark ruling that both parties have acknowledged played a role in Democrats\u2019\u00a0surprisingly strong performance in the elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Republican National Committee is poised to review the draft report as members gather later this week privately in Oklahoma City. While the initial draft does not reference Trump directly, one of the report\u2019s authors, RNC Committeeman Henry Barbour, of Mississippi, said Thursday that the draft is not final and could change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Associated Press obtained only the introduction section of the report, but Republicans familiar with the draft said Trump was not mentioned in the rest of the document. Those Republicans spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the preliminary document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An RNC spokesperson did not immediately reply to messages seeking comment Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The omission of the former president\u2019s name is a sign of his enduring dominance in the Republican Party and shows how even high-ranking GOP officials remain loath to cross him.\u00a0Trump, who is seeking the 2024 GOP presidential nomination,\u00a0is considered the party front-runner and maintains a strong base of support among GOP voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republicans, who had expected a GOP wave amid high inflation, reclaimed the House majority by a much smaller margin than party leaders anticipated. The party also failed to win back the Senate majority, losing notably in battleground states of Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania, where Trump-backed nominees had echoed his false claims of 2020 election fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although not yet finalized, the report is a far cry from the audit conducted after the 2012 elections, when President Barack Obama won a second term in office by defeating Republican Mitt Romney. That report said the party needed to adopt a more inclusive and welcoming tone, embrace a more forgiving position on immigration and conduct more vigorous outreach to Black and Hispanic voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The authors of the post-2022 report did not shrink from urging the party to \u201cfight against the failed policies\u201d of President\u00a0Joe Biden\u00a0and Democrats, but added, \u201cwe should do it with civility.\u201d Biden\u00a0formally announced\u00a0he was seeking reelection this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe American people are ready to move on, but no GOP candidate will benefit if we question the patriotism of our political rivals,\u201d it states. \u201cOur political opponents also love America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While warning against a focus on the past, the draft report from the 2022 midterms also described \u201celection integrity\u201d as a continuing \u201ccritical issue.\u201d The term has emerged as coded phrasing for Republicans after Trump baselessly blamed mass voter fraud for his defeat to Biden in the 2020 election \u2014 despite a broad coalition of top government and industry officials calling it\u00a0\u201cthe most secure in American history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Citing \u201celection integrity\u201d concerns, Republicans across the country have pushed laws to make it harder for citizens to vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The report also touched on voting by mail, an issue that Trump has railed against by claiming, without evidence, that it is ripe for fraud and that mail ballots may be \u201cmanipulated.\u201d Due in part to Trump\u2019s criticism, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to cast mail ballots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRepublican campaigns cannot disregard mail-in voting or other legal means of voting or turning out voters,\u201d the introduction states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCampaigns do that at their own political peril,\u201d it continues. \u201cRepublican campaigns must push our supporters to vote early in person or by mail. Republicans cannot continue to give Democrats a head start.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bill Palatucci, an RNC committeeman from New Jersey who has been a vocal Trump critic, said a review of the 2022 midterms that doesn\u2019t mention the former president is pointless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not worth the effort if you\u2019re not going to honestly review the facts of what happened,\u201d Palatucci said. \u201cIf it doesn\u2019t mention Trump or the election deniers by name, it doesn\u2019t matter. It would be a waste of time to read it because it\u2019s not an honest evaluation of what really went wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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