Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus said Friday that he believed the party needed to take the threat of Democrats becoming competitive in Texas seriously or it could start turning purple by the end of the decade.
Though Republican Greg Abbott trounced Democrat Wendy Davis in the gubernatorial race on Tuesday — which lead commentators like Red State’s Erick Erickson to say that the Democratic Battleground Texas initiative got “curbstomped” — Priebus said the national and state party had taken it “pretty seriously.”
“I do believe that Battleground Texas did a lot of work down there. They woke up the party,” Priebus told reporters at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington, D.C. “If we don’t start paying attention … it’s possible the party could have a problem in years to come.”
Republicans have been investing specifically in Hispanic engagement and establishing regional offices for the last year and a half, Priebus added, and planned to maintain those efforts. A specific budget hadn’t been set for next year, but he hinted it would be significant.
“We know that we have to hold and get better in Texas,” he said. “While I don’t think it’s going to be a problem in 2016, we can’t forget about Texas. By 2020, 2024, I don’t want to see it becoming a close state or a state becoming purple.”