Republicans had good turnout but bad results, but 2024 looks good for the GOP in the Senate and in other races, Chad Connelly, CEO of FaithWins, told the “Todd Starnes Show” Monday.
LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW WITH CHAD CONNELLY BELOW:
Todd Starnes: [01:19:51] I want to go to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Line good friend of this program, the founder, chief executive officer of Faith Wins, our good friend Chad Connelly joins us. Hey, Chad, hope you’re doing good. [01:20:01][10.1]
Chad Connelly: [01:20:03] Hey Todd. I’m like you, brother. I’m taking a look at all this stuff and shaking my head at being outfoxed and outsmarted once again. But really having to play on an unlevel playing field is not any fun. I’ve been reading this whole SBF and FTX stuff myself and just shaking your head, looking at it, going just, wow. [01:20:22][18.4]
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Todd Starnes: [01:20:23] Chad, the pollsters got it all wrong. And and I’m not sure that most I’m not sure anybody had this projected the right way, because when you actually break down a lot of these races, there was no way the Republicans were ever going to win those five or six or seven seats that they were projecting was going to happen. In reality, you know, my question is, was there really a red wave in the first place? [01:20:47][23.8]
Chad Connelly: [01:20:48] You know, I think that we did a really poor job, Todd, of setting expectations because, you know, when you tell people you’re going to win big, you kind of suppress your own vote. Now, we set some record turnouts and had some good wins, but I think you’re right. It’s an uphill climb. We only had..like 10 or 12 seats. The target had to defend 20-something ourselves and that flips in 24. But I do think you’re onto something that we poorly set and certainly poorly managed our expectations. I don’t know if you saw this, but to your point, when Blake Masters has $9 million to run for Senate in Arizona and Mark Kelly has $75 million, that’s not a level playing field. It’s very difficult to unseat an incumbent who outspends you almost 10 to 1. [01:21:36][47.5]
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Todd Starnes: [01:21:36] So, Chad, the raging debate right now is a change in leadership. Does there need to be one? I’ve been pretty outspoken. I think that all of Mc leadership needs to go: McDaniel, McConnell and McCarthy. What say you? [01:21:50][13.5]
Chad Connelly: [01:21:51] Well, I tweeted that yesterday, Todd. Specifically at the RNC as a former state party chairman, as a former senior staffer under Reince Priebus, you know, we flipped nine seats in ’14 helped Trump hit in a record number of evangelical votes in the win in 2016. And Ronna McDaniel removed every bit of Reince’s program essentially. And in the ensuing years, we’ve lost the House, the Senate, the presidency. And let’s face it, we blew the most golden opportunity in the most favorable environment in mine and your lifetimes. And I think you’re right. The pollsters got it wrong. The issue pollsters got it wrong. But it all starts with leadership. Well, the old John Maxwell thing. You know, everything rises and falls on leadership. We really need to have new leadership at the top of the GOP. [01:22:38][47.2]
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Todd Starnes: [01:22:39] And what’s bizarre to me, that was the strategy not to have any sort of direction for the midterm elections. We pulled an Axios report last year. You had Mitch McConnell telling donors that the plan was basically to campaign on how bad Joe Biden is. And you and I both know, Chad, that is not a winning formula right there. [01:22:59][20.2]
Chad Connelly: [01:23:00] No, you can’t beat somebody with nobody and you’ve got to have a message. I mean, it’s kind of like the abortion thing. Todd, you probably saw this. The left spent $410 million telling women that their rights were going to be taken away. And our people, our consultants, the experts, the pointy headed nerds who’ve successfully lost this deal, were telling our candidates, just ignore the abortion thing. Don’t talk about it. Instead of painting them as the extremists they are and saying, look, they want to take a baby’s life up to the point of birth, we don’t even push back on that. And when $410 million swamps you, it’s not hard to predict the outcome. So you’re nailing it, you’re on it. You’re one of the few conservative voices in the country that is talking about this, and we’ve got to talk about it. There are so many people out there, conservatives, Christians, just, you know, dyed in the wool Republicans who are scratching their heads and wanting badly to believe that our leadership wants best for America. They want to badly believe that the system works. And right now they’re being let down badly. [01:23:59][58.9]
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Todd Starnes: [01:24:00] Did the Christian vote turn out in the numbers they needed to turn out? [01:24:04][3.7]
Chad Connelly: [01:24:05] Yeah, I think the Christian vote and we don’t have all the numbers peeled out. But when you look at turnout, I don’t think turnout was our problem. I think that the left has adopted a program of ballot gathering and ballot harvesting as opposed to voter drives. We focus on voter drives. And nobody on our side really talks about how do you counter what the left is clearly doing? We’re into this. We’re going to go get as many ballots we can and from potential voters and go from there we push voters. I think that our voters came out pretty well when you look at what Florida did, Todd. My friends in South Carolina, we flipped eight, eight state House seats. When you look at those New York seats, people came out. But when you see the numbers, I’m looking forward to peelin’ apart the numbers in places like Arizona and Nevada to find just what you’re asking, to find that out. And let’s say let’s just face it, we’re going to get a good dose of this in Georgia. We’ll know for sure. We’re going to do our own bus tour the week after Thanksgiving to make sure the conservative vote comes out. [01:25:06][61.1]
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Todd Starnes: [01:25:06] And, you know, it’s interesting when you talk about vote totals overall, Republicans turned out in bigger numbers than the Democrats did. When you put all the numbers together, more than 6 million. The problem is where they turned out and where they didn’t turn out. And again,… I hate to say this, but I’m just really suspect of the election returns coming out of Arizona and Nevada right now. [01:25:31][24.4]
Chad Connelly: [01:25:32] I am, too. And you’ve got to scratch your head at this thing about. And it’s a valid question. When Florida, was with what 22 million people, finishes voting and counting at 10 p.m. on Election Day and we’re nearly a week later and they’re still counting ballots in a couple of states that are one third the size of Florida, no wonder people question that kind of outcome. There’s it’s unconscionable to be counting votes a week later in a place like America. We ought to have the systems in place. We used to do this. This has been created, I believe COVID was a cover up for this, to give them a reason to do mail-in ballots. And it’s just it’s the potential for problems is ripe. It’s just huge and massive. And it definitely does make people wonder what’s going on and question the results. [01:26:19][46.9]
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Todd Starnes: [01:26:19] I want to play some audio and you being a South Carolina guy. This is Trey Gowdy on FOX last night. Cut number 15. [01:26:28][9.0]
AUDIO: [01:26:30] Now about living in a democracy is there’s always another election, a chance to learn and correct and grow and refine. And based on the victory speeches from Governor DeSantis and Senator Tim Scott, perhaps the next election cycle has already begun on the edge of even this dark night. There is light. I think it’s coming. You may even want to start walking toward it. [01:27:00][29.8]
Todd Starnes: [01:27:01] Talking about Rick Scott and I’m sorry, talking about Ron DeSantis and Tim Scott from South Carolina had their pictures up on the screen just so we didn’t miss it. Chad Connelly. [01:27:15][13.7]
Chad Connelly: [01:27:16] Well, Trey’s a good friend. And of course, he and Tim Scott are best friends. And so he’s been telling Tim for years, you know, man, God’s put you in a spot. You’d be awesome in national leadership. And we know this. Todd, you and I have done this a long time. The election begins the day after the election. And when you look at the map in two years, and I think this is part of what Trey’s pointing to, the Democrats have to defend, I think 25 Senate seats and Republicans only have to defend 13. A lot of those 25 are in red states. And so the map is much more favorable for the Senate in 2024 for Republicans than it was in 2022. But I also think there are emerging stars on the conservative side, and you and I know God’s not surprised. He wasn’t shocked by any of this. As our friend Bob McEwen says, we may just figure out God knows what he’s doing. In the middle of that, though, we’re all scratching our heads going, Okay, Lord, what are you doing here? Why is this going on? We see, though, all the ways the left has lost respect, lost credibility, whether it’s the crime wave, the southern border, the fentanyl all coming across, the inflation, gas prices, Ukraine, whatever else. It’s just it’s hard for us to imagine people would support that. And yet when you look at a Whitmer reelection and things like that, you realize a lot of people do, even Fetterman. So things like that make us scratch your heads. But I do believe God’s in control. He’s on the throne. I hate to be trite about those things, but they’re true. And I think the future bodes well for America. We’re not going anywhere. God’s got us here. He’s got a purpose in this. I am excited about the turnout that I saw in the states we were in. [01:28:51][95.0]
Todd Starnes: [01:28:52] All right. [01:28:52][0.1]
Chad Connelly: [01:28:52] I don’t believe it was bad at all. I think there’s a lot of room for hope, brother. [01:28:55][2.7]
Todd Starnes: [01:28:56] All right, champ, we got to leave it there. Good stuff, as always, folks. We have a direct link to Faith Wins on our live show blog. Chad, appreciate you coming on the show today. [01:29:05][9.2]
Chad Connelly: [01:29:06] Hey anytime. I love you, brother. Appreciate you. [01:29:07][1.3]
Todd Starnes: [01:29:08] All right, Chad Connelly. And again, looking ahead to 2024. You are going to see it setting itself up to where Democrats and Chad is, right where the Democrats are going to be on the hot seat and they’re going to have a massive uphill climb to be able to maintain their numbers, because a lot of those Democrats now in red states, they they were not up for they were not up for reelection this go around, but they will be in 2024. [01:29:35][27.3]