Donald Trump has steamrolled toward the Republican nomination by lambasting all things political establishment, and now that establishment thinks it can convince their insult-wielding front-runner he needs them.

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus has begun stating in private meetings that the party has sway over its at times unwelcome front-runner because it has tools Trump will need to use to win a general election — voter data and field, digital and media operations that a nominee typically inherits from the party infrastructure.


Dangling access to these resources, Priebus thinks he can help steer Trump toward partywide policy goals and away from the inflammatory rhetoric that Republican officials see as divisive and dangerous, especially outside of the primary, according to two Republican sources who have spoken with the RNC chairman.

“It’s a relationship,” said RNC chief strategist and communications director Sean Spicer. “Every nominee — it doesn’t matter this cycle or last cycle — understands now that the role of parties is critical in terms of the manpower, the data, the press operation, the research. The bottom line is no nominee can win without the party.”

But the very idea that the party can somehow control or even influence Trump strikes some Republicans as laughable given a primary season marked by the front-runner’s deliberate and aggressive disregard for political norms and party goals.

“Does anybody have leverage over Donald Trump? Nope,” a former top official at the RNC said. “His own staff doesn’t. No one can control him.”

Ohio Republican Party chairman Matt Borges, who supports 2016 candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, said the party should have been speaking out against Trump early if it wanted to move him away from incendiary comments that many in the party see as hurting their efforts to attract Hispanics and young Americans.

“If we were gonna put a stop to the Trump phenomenon, we should have done it last summer. We should have spoken out as a party,” Borges said. “I met with him one-on-one in Columbus so I could tell him, ‘This isn’t going to help you win here. It’s just not.’”

“He won’t win a general election,” Borges asserted. “So what would the point in that time be if he was our nominee to say, ‘Hey, cool it?’”

But Republican officials in Washington aren’t willing to concede the general before even holding their convention. After Trump’s decisive win in Nevada on Tuesday night that considerably narrowed the paths for Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and handed the New York billionaire the mantle of presumptive nominee, the party is eager to show its support.

“We are committed to making sure the nominee starts off Day One with the ability to win,” Spicer said, adding that it’s not about being able to have a tight leash on the candidate.

On CNN Thursday afternoon Priebus said the idea that he was gearing up to "discipline" Trump or any other nominee was "ridiculous."

"I think it's important to realize what's happening here. These folks are competing to join our party. We have a nomination contest for the Republican Party. And our party is going to choose someone to join our party. We're not joining a candidate. They're competing to join us and that's what happens in a nomination process," Priebus continued. "So they're joining a party that's built up the resources, the mechanics, the ground game, that they're going to need in order to win in November. So it's a team effort, ultimately, when it's all done."



The RNC generally plays a critical role for any nominee in a general election cycle, providing that candidate with voter files, additional press operation help and manpower in states across the country.

The national parties also traditionally spend heavily in support of their presidential nominees. They’re permitted to spend $24 million in direct coordination with their respective standard-bearers, and an unlimited amount independently supporting them.

A GOP candidate bucking those resources would be hamstrung, especially against an opponent as well organized and financed nationally as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

After Mitt Romney’s stunning technology collapse on Election Day 2012, the RNC sought to reinvest in its efforts by pouring $100 million into a total makeover that included hiring about 50 staffers working on everything from data collection to analyzing social media trends. They bragged of a 2014 midterm effort that included figuring out the likely voting preferences of 200 million Americans, as well as online fundraising efforts that were the party’s best since 2008.

RNC officials have recently boasted that headed into the 2016 general election they will be able to deploy a much more sophisticated data-driven get out the vote effort compared with the Romney debacle. Speaking last month to Radio Iowa, Priebus promised the party would have a ground operation in Iowa that would be “3-to-5 times bigger” than it was in 2012, with more than 100 paid field staffers specifically for voter turnout.

“One of the things that’s different from this year as opposed to four years ago is that we’ve got a national party now that has its act together when it comes to the ground game and the data operation that I think people were disappointed in, in 2012,” Priebus said in the Radio Iowa interview.

Trump is already cooperating. He signed a list-sharing agreement with the RNC last year. And Spicer stressed the RNC’s discussions with Trump are not about leveling threats about withholding party resources in the general. By the time an indisputable delegate leader appears, Spicer said all Republicans will share the same goal — winning the White House.

“You just can’t start it off — especially with a guy like Trump — if you went in hot, I don’t think that would be a smart move,” Spicer said.

Darren Samuelsohn and Ken Vogel contributed to this report.

