page_title: Reince Priebus
section_title: Second term
hierarchical_section_title: Reince Priebus / Political career / RNC chairmanship / Second term
caption_attribution_description: English: Reince Priebus speaking at CPAC 2014 in Washington, D.C.
context_page_description: Reinhold Richard "Reince" Priebus is an American lawyer and politician who served as White House Chief of Staff for President Donald Trump from January 20, 2017, until July 31, 2017. He also served as the chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2011 to 2017.
  Raised in Wisconsin, Priebus graduated from the University of Miami School of Law in 1998. After working for the law firm Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, Priebus was elected as the chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party in 2007. In 2009, he became the general counsel for the Republican National Committee. He won the 2011 Republican National Committee chairmanship election and took office in January 2011. As chairman, Priebus was the public face of the party and frequently criticized the policies of President Barack Obama. He presided over the Republican Party during the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections.
  Priebus publicly criticized Trump during the early stages of the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, but he later called for party unity. He opposed efforts to deny Trump the nomination at the 2016 Republican National Convention and supported his presidential campaign in the general election.
context_section_description: For Priebus's second term he set the goal of "transforming the party – to be a force from coast to coast." In his re-election speech he stated that the party would no longer approach electoral politics from a "red and blue state" perspective.
  On March 18, 2013, Priebus presented the completed Growth and Opportunity Project report developed from a listening tour and four-month analysis carried out by Priebus and Republican strategists including Ari Fleischer, Henry Barbour, Sally Bradshaw, Zori Fonalledas and Glenn McCall. The report outlined a comprehensive plan for the party to overhaul its operations. Specific plans outlined in the report included: improving the Republican Party's digital and research capabilities; a $10 million outreach effort to minority communities; supporting immigration reform; and reducing the length of the presidential primary season.
  In September 2013, Priebus was successful in persuading both CNN and NBC to cancel planned biopics of Hillary Clinton, which had been criticized as "free campaigning on Clinton's behalf", according to columnist Jennifer Rubin. Priebus stated that the networks would not be allowed to moderate a Republican primary debate if the films went ahead.
  The following year, Politico reported that Priebus had made progress with efforts to make the RNC a year-round operation, particularly through investment into digital technology and field staff.
  In a March 2014 CNN op-ed, Priebus said that the RNC had established a data management and predictive analytics initiative called Para Bellum Labs, with an office in Silicon Valley. Continuing Priebus's aim to create an initiative to rival the voter mobilization efforts of the 2012 Obama campaign, in May 2014, the RNC launched the Victory 365 program. The program focuses on communicating with and encouraging the efforts of volunteers across the U.S. to reach others in their communities.
  Priebus also worked to reduce the length of the presidential primary calendar, generating support for a RNC rules change to make the primary calendar shorter by up to three months and bringing the national convention forward to late June at the earliest. The rules change was passed almost unanimously in January 2014.
  Also following the Growth and Opportunity Project report (also called "the autopsy" and "the post-mortem"), Priebus led efforts to reach out to black, Latino and Asian American voters. In July 2014, he spoke at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, where he said that to support these efforts the Republican Party was spending approximately $8.5 million per month and had established offices in 15 states.
  In a speech on October 2, 2014, Priebus laid out the RNC's "Principles for American Renewal", covering 11 goals of the Republican party in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election. The principles include three economy-related proposals for the Senate to move forward: approval of construction on the Keystone XL Pipeline; federal healthcare law reform; and a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. constitution. Other goals included in the principles include job creation, care of veterans, immigration reform and reducing government spending. Following the speech, the Democratic National Committee issued a statement criticizing Priebus, calling Republicans "out of step with the American public".
  On January 16, 2015, Priebus was re-elected to a third term on a near-unanimous vote, making him the first chairman to lead the RNC for three consecutive terms with a Democratic president in the White House.
caption: Priebus at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)
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