Behind the GOP statehouse juggernaut

This year the RSLC poured $6 million into recruiting a more diverse slate of candidates. Mr. McCollum says the committee’s staff worked with minority business groups like the National Black Chamber of Commerce to identify potential candidates. It also sought out female Republicans who, he says, could speak to issues of “economic security that were appealing to mothers and working women.”

A poster girl for the GOP’s minority-recruitment efforts is West Virginia mother and military wife Jill Upson, who defeated an incumbent Democratic House member by more than 10 points. Others include Young Kim, Janet Nguyen and Catharine Baker, whose upset victories in California helped deny Democrats a legislative supermajority.

Mr. McCollum adds that the RSLC also does “a lot of intelligence-gathering. . . . We will ask questions, and we will do polling. Our resources are targeted. We will help train the candidate if we need to do so.” This year “we wound up shifting money to Minnesota when we saw that the House was in reach. Last summer, it didn’t look like it was. It took seven seats to flip the House.”

While the RSLC tries to localize races, it “nationalized the fundraising and targeting,” says Mr. McCollum. “We helped [candidates] get support and attention nationally. For example, Jeb Bush did a fundraiser for us in San Francisco, and I think some of the people who gave to us who were Republicans in the San Francisco area wanted to know what we can do to help in California. And the answer was: Focus on these two or three candidates.”