# RNC Autopsy > [!note] 📄 Non-governmental report > Published by the [[Republican National Committee]], a political party committee, so it has no official government standing. Officially titled the **Growth and Opportunity Project**. Released **March 18, 2013**. The Republican Party's official post-mortem on the [[2012 Presidential Election]], commissioned by RNC chair [[Reince Priebus]] after [[Mitt Romney]] lost to [[Barack Obama]]. The report's own name for itself, the Growth and Opportunity Project, is almost never used. Everyone, including the RNC, called it the autopsy. It is the most important *road-not-taken* document in modern Republican politics. It told the party exactly what it had to do to win, and three years later [[Donald Trump]] won the presidency by doing the opposite. ## What it was - **Commissioned:** announced by Priebus in December 2012, after the November loss. - **Authors:** five co-chairs appointed by Priebus: Henry Barbour (Mississippi), Sally Bradshaw (a longtime adviser to [[Jeb Bush]]), [[Ari Fleischer]] (former [[George W. Bush]] press secretary), Zori Fonalledas (Puerto Rico), and Glenn McCall (South Carolina). - **Research base:** more than 36,000 online surveys, more than 3,000 group listening sessions, more than 800 conference calls, and more than 50 focus groups. - **Released:** March 18, 2013, at the National Press Club in Washington. - **Size:** roughly 100 pages. The RNC's release says 98 pages; contemporary coverage said 100. It made **219 recommendations** in seven areas: messaging, demographic partners, campaign mechanics, friends and allies, fundraising, campaign finance, and the primary process (RNC release). - **Budget:** Priebus committed an initial $10 million to carry out the recommendations that year (RNC release). ## What it said **The diagnosis was about how the party came across, not about its policies.** Its most quoted line: *"The perception that the GOP does not care about people is doing great harm to the Party."* It described a party stuck in an *"ideological cul-de-sac,"* talking mostly to people who already agreed with it. It found Republican governors far better at public persuasion than Republicans in Congress. **On immigration it was unambiguous:** > "We must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our Party's appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only." It added that comprehensive reform was "consistent with Republican economic policies that promote job growth and opportunity for all" (quoted by the American Immigration Council and Power Line). **On demographics:** it called for organized outreach to Hispanic, Black, Asian American, women, gay, and young voters. It warned that a growing nonwhite electorate would make national elections steadily harder for a party that won mostly white voters. **On operations:** it called for a data and digital overhaul, less dependence on television ads, more small-dollar fundraising, and a standing opposition-research operation. **On the nominating process:** it recommended cutting primary debates from about 20 in 2011–12 to about 10–12, holding the convention in late June or July instead of late summer, and compressing the primary calendar. Some Republicans objected at the time that these changes favored establishment candidates over insurgents. ## What happened to it **The mechanics were adopted.** The RNC invested in data and digital operations and hired demographic outreach staff. It moved the 2016 convention to July. A year after the report, the committee was publicly touting its progress (NPR, March 2014). **The politics were rejected, first by Congress and then by the voters.** The Senate passed the [[Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013]] that June, 68–32, but the House never took it up. Trump opened his 2015 campaign by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, and he ran on the exact opposite of every recommendation in the report on immigration, inclusion, and tone. He won the nomination and then the presidency while losing nonwhite, female, and young voters by wide margins. **The authors' own verdicts** (NPR, 2020): - [[Ari Fleischer]]: *"I think it's fair to say that the Trump campaign did what we recommended. But did it in a way we did not recommend."* - Sally Bradshaw, who left the Republican Party in 2016, called the report "obviously a failure." - Republican pollster Whit Ayres: *"For the most part, the Republican Party has done the opposite of what was recommended in the 2013 autopsy."* ## Why it matters in this vault **It is the baseline the Trump realignment is measured against.** On [[Party Realignment]], the autopsy and its rejection are a precondition for the 2016 trigger election. The autopsy recorded what the party establishment believed in 2013. The 2016 primary showed that the party's voters did not share that belief. **It is the [[Proposition 187 (1994)]] lesson, written down and then thrown away.** The California GOP's turn against immigrants in 1994 cost it the state for a generation. The autopsy was the national party's attempt not to repeat that mistake. On immigration, the 2016 campaign repeated it anyway. **It is a Priebus irony.** The chair who commissioned the diagnosis became White House chief of staff to the candidate who rejected it (see [[Reince Priebus]]). **It is the first step in the RNC's institutional arc.** The 2013 report tried to manage the primary process so that insurgents would have a harder time winning. Eleven years later the insurgent controlled the committee itself (see [[Republican National Committee]]). The autopsy is the high-water mark of the party establishment's confidence that it could steer the party. **A caution on the "it failed" reading.** The autopsy assumed that a restrictionist party would keep losing ground with nonwhite voters. Exit polls showed Trump doing slightly better than Romney with Black, Latino and Asian voters in 2016 (NPR, 2020), and the 2024 coalition added a large defection of Hispanic men (see [[2012 Presidential Election]]). The report's demographic math turned out wrong along with its political advice, so "the party ignored the autopsy and lost" is not the lesson. The lesson is that the party ignored it and won. ## Connections - [[Republican National Committee]] · [[Republican Party]] · [[Reince Priebus]] - [[2012 Presidential Election]] → [[2016 Presidential Election]] - [[Party Realignment]] · [[Proposition 187 (1994)]] · [[Tea Party Movement]] - [[Reports Hub]]