page_title: Steve Munisteri
section_title: 2014
hierarchical_section_title: Steve Munisteri / Texas GOP chairman / 2014
caption_attribution_description: English: Steve Munisteri and Rand Paul speaking in Dallas, Texas.
context_page_description: Stephen Peter Munisteri is a retired attorney from Houston, Texas, who from 2010 to 2015 was chairman of the Republican Party of Texas. In 2016 he joined the Rand Paul for President Campaign.
  In 2017, Steve was appointed to the White House staff as Deputy Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Public Liaison.
  Steve Munisteri was elected chairman at the state convention held in Dallas on June 13, 2010, when he unseated Cathie Adams, the wife of a Dallas chiropractor, who had held the position for only eight months. He is the first challenger in modern Texas Republican history to defeat a sitting incumbent for the position of state chairman. Early in his political career, Munisteri served as state chairman of the Texas Chapter of Young Americans for Freedom and founded the Young Conservatives of Texas in 1980.
  Munisteri stepped down as party chairman to join U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky as a senior advisor to Paul's 2016 presidential campaign.
context_section_description: At the March 2014 meeting of the State Republican Executive Committee, Chairman Munisteri announced that he would seek re-election at the request of the successful Republican gubernatorial nominee Gregg Abbott. Munisteri also reported at that meeting the party had brought in approximately $17 million in revenues during his tenure as Chairman. He indicated that the Party was in excellent financial health and has been completely debt free since November 2010. He also indicated that cash reserves had never fallen below $500,000 during that time. Munisteri also reported at that meeting that the outreach and Victory efforts continued to be expanded to include 10 full-time engagement and field staffers, include a full-time Director of Youth Engagement, Director of African American Engagement, Director of Hispanic Engagement, and a full-time Director of Asian American Engagament.
  The Chairman reported on the great success of the Victory efforts. Specifically, he noted that the new statewide Asian American, African America, and Hispanic engagement organizations had been very active and attending numerous events around the state signing up hundreds of new contacts. Most encouraging, he also reported the engagement efforts has yielded verifiable results in the form of a February 2014 Gallup study that concluded that the Texas Republican Party had obtained 6% more support from the Hispanic community than the Republican Parties in all other 49 states. Moreover, the study indicated that Democrat support among Hispanics in Texas declined 7% over last few years. The Chairman also reported that the RPT has opened permanent Victory centers in Fort Worth, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Corpus Christi, El Paso, and The Valley. These centers have overseen numerous block walks utilizing thousands of volunteers knocking on tens of thousands of doors.
  In 2014, Chairman Munisteri was also an active member of the RNC's Commission on Convention Planning which presented its final report to the RNC in Memphis during the second week of May. Munisteri was also a member of the Rules Committee for the RNC and was appointed to a subcommittee that dealt with the Presidential Primary Process. He was an active supporter of reforming the process which included wrestling control of the debate process away from the media and giving it to the RNC. Munisteri also supported efforts to ensure that other states do not jump in front of Texas's March 1 primary date so Texas can be a major player in the 2016 presidential primary process.
  At the 2014 State Convention, Munisteri was re-elected as Chairman with only four votes against him out of approximately 7,000 delegates and alternates in attendance.
  In November, Munisteri announced that the party had set a new record for the number of Republicans elected to office around the state. As of December 4, 2014 Republicans held 3,652 elected offices around the state. This represented an increase of 360. When Munisteri was elected to office, Republicans held 2,470 offices. Under his watch, the total increase in the number of republicans who hold office around the state is 1,262.
  The RPT also announced in November that under Munisteri's chairmanship, the party had brought in approximately $22 million and had reached the milestone of being completely debt-free for four consecutive years.
  At the final quarterly meeting of the SREC, Munisteri announced that he had secured funding to maintain permanent Victory centers and staff across the state. This was the first time in the history of the party that Victory operations did not cease at the conclusion of an election cycle.
  Munisteri resigned as chairman in March 2015 to act as Senior Adviser for Rand Paul for President.  The Republican Executive Committee chose Tom Mechler (born c. 1957) of Amarillo as the new chairman. He defeated an intraparty challenge from Jared Woodfill, the former Harris County chairman.
caption: Munisteri at a press conference with Senator Rand Paul in Dallas, Texas.
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