Famously, after Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election, the RNC under Reince Priebus developed an autopsy report. The report was based on 3,000 “group listening sessions,” over 800 conference calls, and 2,000 surveys of Hispanics, with 225 consultants employed. It produced such gangbusters recommendations as “Republicans should never look at one group of Americans and assume we can’t reach them. Good ideas reach everyone.” It recommended the creation of a “Growth and Opportunity Inclusion Council” to “collaborate with other Republican organizations of diversity.” It recommended race-based hiring for certain Republican jobs: “The RNC should hire Hispanic communications directors and political directors for key states” and “APA [Asian and Pacific Islander Americans] communications directors and political directors for key states and communities across the country.”
The bottom line was that Republicans could retain the party’s more libertarian policy recommendations by just ditching social and cultural conservatism. The recommendations on the mechanics of running a party, including data-gathering and voter contact, were cursory at best.
Can we get a real Republican autopsy this time?
What went wrong? How were candidates actually recruited in this cycle? Was charisma even a factor?
Why did Republicans overperform in New York, where districts were drawn by a court to be “fair,” compared with states where Republicans were in charge of gerrymandering? Does this indicate that the party doesn’t really know who its voters are, or how to communicate to them?
Are Republicans still too dependent in midterms on “high-propensity voters,” who are now more attracted to the Democratic Party? What tactics, techniques, and strategies of previous Democratic GOTV operations can be adapted by Republicans as they rely on lower-propensity voters?
Are Republican campaigns continuing to sow distrust of the electoral system in voters and thereby demoralizing them? If states are going to continue to allow ballot-harvesting, and mail-in voting for a month before Election Day, what are the best strategies for Republicans to bank votes in future elections?
Just a start.