“To defeat an incumbent president, even one that’s got the political problems of this one, the RNC has to operate at absolutely maximum capacity and this year they operated far, far, far below that in terms of fundraising, in terms of grassroots organization, and in terms of building strong, self-reliant state parties,” said Barbour, an influential voice in the GOP and himself a former national party chair.

In a separate interview, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the incoming RGA chairman and one of the nation’s longest-serving governors, didn’t say directly that Steele should go but made an impassioned case for the members of the RNC to consider Nick Ayers, the executive director of the governors association.