Video: Wicker Elected Chair of NRSC

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FROM STAFF REPORTS AND THE NATIONAL JOURNAL

WASHINGTON – As Republicans take over the U.S. Senate and Congress, Mississippi’s Roger Wicker moves into an influential position.

In secret balloting this morning, Wicker was elected chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee by new and returning senators. That’s the sixth highest position in the party leadership. He beat out Dean Heller of Nevada.

While his party is celebrating now, he’ll face a tougher task in 2016 when 24 Republican Senate seats are on the ballot and only 10 Democratic seats. Insiders say Wicker’s work in the last two years traveling the country for Senate candidates and his help in getting Thad Cochran re-elected at home were keys to his support.

Wicker’s new leadership post gives the state two seats of influence…Cochran likely will head the influential Senate Appropriations Committee.

“I am thankful for the confidence and the support of my colleagues. I intend to roll up my sleeves immediately to ensure that we have the resources available to preserve our Republican majority. This Senate Republican leadership team is ready to go to bat for the American people, and I am proud to be a part of it,” Wicker said.

Heller ran the most visible campaign for the post, touting his experience in hard-fought campaigns, including winning in what is known as a “Purple” state and winning in 2012 when President Obama won Nevada by seven percentage points.

Nevada also held another advantage for Heller in the NRSC race: It’s also home to deep-pocketed GOP donors Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn. Adelson and his wife gave maximum donations to Heller’s 2012 campaign. Heller called Adelson and Wynn “friends,” but said that his connection to the two casino moguls was not a “major push” for his campaign.

Wicker, by contrast, hasn’t had to run a real race for his seat. And in deep-red Mississippi, he hasn’t had to appeal to independent and Democratic voters to nearly the extent that Heller has-or that many of the party’s 2016 incumbents will have to.

But Wicker hasn’t always had it so easy, argued his predecessor and onetime employer, former Sen. Trent Lott. Wicker entered the House by winning a difficult, crowded contest for a seat that had been held by a Democrat for more than 50 years. He won a six-way primary, then bested another Republican in a runoff, and went on to beat the Democratic nominee by 30 points. It’s been a while, Lott argued, but Wicker’s still got it.

“Roger has been around a long time-and both as a staff member, congressman, senator-and he knows a lot of people … on Capitol Hill and downtown. I think he’s highly regarded,” Lott told the National Journal.

For his part, Wicker’s pitch to colleagues was focused on experience. “I have a history of raising money, of traveling for the committee,” he said in describing his pitch. “I was probably in 15 states during the last two years from Colorado and Arizona to New York and Ohio and Florida and Louisiana, Texas. So I’m not new to the exhausting process of traveling to fundraising events and also getting on the phone and persuading people to believe in us, enough to write a check for our candidates.”

Though he called it a “friendly” race, there’s at least one area where Wicker’s political experience far outweighs Heller’s: in Republican primaries. While Heller, like many of his colleagues, has stayed out of intra-party contests, Wicker got his hands dirty in fellow GOP Sen. Thad Cochran’s primary in Mississippi this year.

Wicker’s exhaustive work to help Cochran fend off a challenge from state Sen. Chris McDaniel impressed members and political operatives alike. He was “very aggressive in being helpful” to Cochran “right up to the end,” Lott said. “On a Friday I was driving to the football game and my cell phone rang. … It was Roger raising money for Thad.”

“When I think of Wicker, I think of the fact that he was so involved in Senator Cochran’s primary,” Republican lobbyist David Morgenstern of the Podesta Group told The National Journal. “Certainly for Republicans, the primaries are becoming just as important as the general election in terms of your ability to win races in November. And so I think that’s sort of an experience that Senator Wicker was probably sharing with his colleagues, in terms of how hard he worked and how effectively he worked to help get Senator Cochran across the goal line. Because if he hadn’t, potentially that race could have been in play.”

And although Wicker hasn’t faced any real challenges for his seat since entering Congress, the Mississippi Republican is a strong fundraiser. One Republican strategist said “K Street fears him,” and lobbyists who have donated to the NRSC have urged the committee to let Wicker know that they donated. “Not Mitch McConnell. Not John Cornyn. Roger Wicker. It’s crazy,” the strategist said.

Several former staffers for both Wicker and Lott now work on K Street, Lott said. And his positions on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee haven’t hurt either.

Like Heller, Wicker also has ties to at least one major GOP donor: Karl Rove, whose American Crossroads group and its affiliates will play a big role in 2016. The two met decades ago while the former Bush adviser was campaigning for chairman of the National College Republicans. He’s also close to former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who appointed Wicker to the Senate and carries a lot of political weight with Republican donors and operatives nationwide. (Coincidentally, Heller was also appointed to the Senate.)

But as with Heller, there are concerns. Wicker can raise money at home and on K Street, but it’s unclear what kind of appeal he would have in New York or Silicon Valley, where the party is working to expand its fundraising footprint. As for campaigning, Wicker’s lack of political battle experience makes him a sort of unknown quantity. Given his few real races, Wicker doesn’t have a very large political operation, and several strategists said there were questions about who exactly would serve on the NRSC under Wicker.

Lott said he was fond of both Wicker and Heller, noting that all three of them are fraternity brothers-former Sigma Nus. “Either one of these guys would be great, but I’ve got to stick by my homie,” Lott said.

Wicker has reached out to Lott, who served in several leadership positions during his tenure in the Senate, for advice on the race. “I asked him quite frankly: Why in the world would you want that job?” Lott said. “It’s a tough leadership position. … It’s really the only leadership position that I never wanted and never held.”