Schieffer Grills Priebus over Cantor Loss: How Can You Win if You’re Not United?

RNC Chair Reince Priebus denied on Face the Nation that outgoing House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s surprise primary defeat last week signaled a rift in the Republican Party between tea partiers and more establishment members, arguing instead that the GOP was set up to sweep the midterms and enter the 2016 presidential race with a deep bench of candidates.

“We’re doing about everything you need to do to keep winning,” Priebus said. “The fact is, we didn’t beat an incumbent president in 2012. We’re winning everywhere else. The future is very solid, and I think this year is going to be very good for our party.”

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Schieffer asked if the GOP’s bench of potential 2016 nominees would matter if the party couldn’t unite behind one of them.

“We will be united in the presidential election,” Priebus declared. “If you just take one race of Eric Cantor, a Republican district that remains Republican, and if you want to talk about Mississippi, another Republican state that’s going to be Republican, you’re taking two races out of the entire country and extrapolating that into some big division.”

Watch the clip below, via CBS News:

[Image via screengrab]

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