August 24, 2023 -- Republican strategist Sarah Chamberlain said Nikki Haley’s debate performance Wednesday was akin to one aimed at a general election audience, while Vivek Ramaswamy “ran a primary debate.” Chamberlain, the president and CEO of Republican Main Street Partnership, said GOP candidates need to appeal to Republican voters — especially supporters of former President Trump — to lock up the nomination before they can start thinking about the general election, which was the strategy Ramaswamy utilized at the first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 cycle. The comments came during The Hill’s event, “2024 Debate Breakdown: An Insider’s Look at the First Republican Presidential Debate,” which streamed Thursday morning. “Right now they’ve got to be pulling the Trump voters away from Donald Trump. In order to do that, you have to do what Vivek did last night,” said Chamberlain, who is also the president and founder of Women2Women Conversations Tour. “Nikki Haley ran a great general debate, Vivek ran a primary debate, and that’s just the difference between the two.” “In order to get to the general we have got to get through a primary,” she continued. “And I would say, you know, we talk about the more mainstream Republicans, but they’re not voting in the primaries, and that’s a problem. So the people who are voting in the primaries, we have to go out and appeal to in order to get to the general, and that’s what happened last night.” Read the full story at The Hill

August 18, 2023 -- The Republican Main Street Partnership (RMSP), in conjunction with nationally recognized research firm Echelon Insights, released new polling data just days ahead of the first GOP presidential debate. With nationwide polling of 1,017 likely Republican primary voters, the data reveals some surprising new insights about top primary voter concerns and shows how political outsider Vivek Ramaswamy has climbed to a clear second place, ahead of the political veterans in the field. The poll was conducted with a sample and methodology that is in accordance with the RNC's criteria for debate qualifying polls. "While Donald Trump remains the frontrunner, Republican voters seeking an alternative candidate are beginning to coalesce around a few top-tier choices. For much of the past year that was Gov. DeSantis, but Vivek Ramaswamy has risen well above expectations and is currently leading the pack of challengers," notes Sarah Chamberlain, RMSP President and CEO. "Voters are clearly hungry for something new - no group more than the suburban women who often decide elections. If Mr. Ramaswamy, Gov. DeSantis, or any of the other hopefuls want a serious chance at winning the nomination, appealing to those voters should be top priority." The poll was conducted August 15-17, 2023. Some key findings include: Donald Trump is still the clear frontrunner for the GOP, garnering a majority of support among respondents (55%). He performed most strongly among non-college-educated individuals (61%), within the 50-64 age range (64%), among fathers (63%), and the most conservative voters (63%). Vivek Ramaswamy (15%) has surged into second place with Ron DeSantis (12%) moving into third place. Ramaswamy has continued to rise in polls, performing particularly well among parents (20%) and suburban women (19%). There is a steep dropoff following DeSantis with Mike Pence (4%), Nikki Haley (3%) and Tim Scott (3%) polling in the low single digits. The only other candidate to gain the support of at least 1% of respondents is Chris Christie at 1%. Top voter issues include cost of living (27%), political corruption (18%), jobs and the economy (15%), and immigration (15%). Cost of living is a particularly acute issue for GOP primary voters with 42% of mothers naming it as their top concern. The top concern for fathers is political corruption at 29%. 53% say that a candidate MUST share their views on cost of living in order to earn their vote - a higher percentage than seen for issues like taxes (42%), guns (40%), or abortion (35%). By a two-to-one margin, likely Republican primary voters say that they believe Roe vs. Wade should have been overturned (59%) rather than upheld (30%). And while, in theory, they are averse to a federal approach to the issue, with 60% preferring the issue to be left to the states, when specifically asked about a federal policy limiting abortions around 17 weeks, 71% of our respondents said they would support such a policy. Seven-in-10 respondents say they are dissatisfied with the education being provided by our nation's K-12 schools. When asked about mental health resources for children, it is mothers who are the most likely to say they are dissatisfied; 52% of respondents overall, including 59% of mothers say that they are dissatisfied with the mental health resources available to children. METHODOLOGY: This survey was fielded from August 15-17, 2023 among a sample of N=1,017 likely 2024 Republican primary voters nationwide. Respondents were contacted through web sample providers and completed the survey online. The sample was matched to the L2 voter file to verify respondents' voter registration status and was weighted to population benchmarks for likely Republican primary voters nationwide on gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, and Census region. Calculated the way it would be for a random sample and adjusted to incorporate the effect of weighting, the margin of sampling error is ± 3.9 percentage points. This survey was conducted by Echelon Insights on behalf of the Republican Main Street Partnership. ABOUT RMSP: The Republican Main Street Partnership (RMSP) encompasses a broad alliance of conservative, governing Republicans, including more than 85 sitting members in Congress. Led by President and CEO Sarah Chamberlain, RMSP is dedicated to working to enact common sense legislation that gets things done for the American people. RMSP's members run and win in the most highly contested swing districts in the country.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 10, 2023 WASHINGTON - Republican Main Street Partnership (RMSP) has launched a national digital ad campaign slamming President Biden’s newly proposed budget immediately following its release. “President Biden's newly proposed budget is out of control and hurts Americans. We simply cannot tax our way out of this spending crisis. Republican Main Street Partnership is educating Americans nationwide about the danger and recklessness of this proposal, and reminding folks that we have a spending problem - not a revenue problem,” said RMSP CEO Sarah Chamberlain. The ad campaign will run on digital platforms nationwide.

RMSP CEO Sarah Chamberlain joins Meet the Press NOW to discuss the state of the 2024 race as Governor Nikki Haley announces her presidential bid, the ongoing entitlements fight over Social Security and Medicare and questions of transparency surrounding flying objects shot down over North America.

February 8, 2023 -- The Republican Main Street Partnership is planning to invest more than $25 million in House races in 2024 to grow the GOP’s razor-thin majority. It’s already busy recruiting candidates and testing their viability in targeted districts via focus groups run by one of the party’s most prominent pollsters. ... Sarah Chamberlain, executive director of the Republican Main Street Partnership, declined to list the districts the group is eyeing for a GOP takeover or hold. But she let slip that New Hampshire’s 1st District and Washington state’s 3rd District are on her radar. Both were top GOP priorities in the 2022 midterm elections, but in each the party came up short because general election voters rejected Republican nominees closely aligned with Trump. “We’re really on top of this in an earlier way than we’ve ever been before,” Chamberlain told The Dispatch this month. That means earlier candidate recruitment, earlier candidate training schools, and earlier candidate funding, plus advance preparation to field candidates in contested districts where popular Republican incumbents are thought likely to retire. ... Read the full story in The Dispatch

February 6, 2023 -- Republican pragmatists in the House of Representatives have a message for President Joe Biden: We don’t support a clean debt ceiling increase, either. Rep. Dusty Johnson says that the group of pragmatic conservatives he leads in the House would oppose legislation raising the federal borrowing limit absent an accompanying deal with Biden and Senate Democrats to rein in government spending and reduce Washington’s $31.4 trillion debt. Absent such an agreement, the United States risks defaulting on its financial obligations, conceded Johnson, chairman of the Main Street Caucus, which now numbers more than 70*. “I don’t know a single pragmatic conservative who supports a clean debt ceiling increase,” the South Dakota Republican told The Dispatch in an interview Thursday. “If President Biden decides he wants to be a legislative terrorist who refuses to have a discussion about—who refuses to discuss meaningful action on a $32 trillion debt, then he has the power to hurt America. There’s no question about that.” ... But Johnson vows Biden will not succeed in using the threat of economic calamity to split the Main Street caucus from the rest of the House Republican conference. “He’s going to need to come to the table and really negotiate,” said Johnson, 46, a third-term congressman and member of McCarthy’s kitchen cabinet of advisers included in House GOP leadership meetings. “If [Biden] thinks that the Republicans are going to splinter off and get weaker and just be willing to accept a third of a loaf, that’s not going to happen,” he added. “We’re not going to default on this debt, but we absolutely have to make serious and material changes to how we spend money in this country. And Joe Biden’s got to accept that. And I think if he does, he’s going to have the Republican Conference in a united way being willing to cut a deal.” Read the full story in The Dispatch

January 27, 2023 -- Early this summer, the federal government will, in all likelihood, exhaust the “extraordinary measures” it is now employing to keep paying the nation’s bills. As the country careens toward that fiscal abyss, Congress will face a now-familiar stalemate: Republicans will refuse to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats agree to cut spending. Democrats will balk. Markets will slide—perhaps precipitously—and the economy will swiftly turn south. When that moment arrives, the most important people in Washington won’t be those who work in the White House, or even the party leaders who occupy the Capitol’s most palatial offices. They will be the House Republicans who sit closest to the political center: the so-called moderates. The GOP’s majority is narrow enough that any five Republicans could dash Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s plan to demand a ransom for the debt ceiling. They will have to decide whether to stand with him or join with Democrats to avert a first-ever default on the nation’s debt. ... Two years ago, Bacon picked up the discarded flag of a dormant GOP group called the Main Street Caucus. The caucus is the House extension of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a political organization founded 25 years ago by then-Representative Amo Houghton of New York. The original Main Street Partnership was explicitly, and proudly, moderate; Houghton called himself a “militant moderate,” and the group’s aim was to “serve as a voice for centrist Republicans,” as well as to soften the GOP’s harsh rhetoric and policies on abortion, gay rights, and the environment, among other issues. The Partnership remains active—it spent $25 million in support of Republican candidates last year... "We used to be called moderate. We are not moderate,” says Sarah Chamberlain, the Partnership’s CEO and a former aide to Houghton (who retired from Congress in 2004 and died in 2020). Its members now identify as “pragmatic conservatives.” “The entity from day one has the same name, but it looks very different,” Chamberlain told me. Read the full story in The Atlantic

January 23, 2023 -- Organizations aligned with sometimes sparring factions of congressional Republicans are pushing beyond the beltway to build closer relationships in state legislatures. The Republican Main Street Partnership wants to help state legislators it refers to as the most interested in governing to create their own groups and to collaborate on legislative priorities. ... “They’re probably the most conservative group that Main Street has ever had, to be honest with you, and that’s where the country’s going and that’s great,” said Sarah Chamberlain, the group’s president. Chamberlain said state lawmakers who have reached out to the group want to establish similar partnerships within their legislatures or work closely together. She sees the effort as a way to groom candidates for federal office as Main Street Republicans seek other offices or retire. “We’re pretty excited about that because we need to build a conservative farm team, which Main Street has never done before,” Chamberlain said. “So this is really our first endeavor into this area.” When asked about the freedom caucus project, Chamberlain said it was a good idea, which is why they are working on their own project. She downplayed the risk of any tension with the U.S. Freedom Caucus and said that most members of the two groups work together and agree more than they disagree. But she stressed that the Main Street Republicans outnumber the U.S. Freedom Caucus Republicans. She said their goal is to elect more Main Street Republicans in Congress to reduce gridlock. “It’d be nice to have more people who want to get to ‘yes’ elected,” Chamberlain said. “So that’s what we’re trying to do in identifying the candidates." ”Congress has to work, and I think the American people want Congress to work,” Chamberlain said. “And that’s what we’re trying to do.” Read the full story in Pluribus News