Back in 2022, and during her re-election efforts in early 2023, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel touted the party's minority outreach as a major accomplishment and a reason why she should continue to lead the party. In the 2022 cycle the party operated "nearly two dozen Hispanic Outreach Centers" in battleground areas around the country, stating that they wanted to become an integral and permanent part of that community. Today, though, according to a report in The Messenger, only five of those are still open.

The community centers were pitched as a dream intersection of fun, civic life, candidate recruitment, and GOTV muscle, with the party touting Thanksgiving potlucks, toy drives, religious services, crypto workshops, and even an ugly sweater Christmas party with Folklorico dancing in San Antonio. Community centers continued to pop up in Hispanic communities and positive headlines continued to flow.

But four months after the grand opening of the Phoenix center, it was closed, along with most of the other centers, the RNC confirmed after The Messenger reached out. While the RNC touted opening 20 Hispanic community centers during the 2022 cycle, it said there are only five centers currently open, two of which were opened in 2023.

Officials at the RNC told The Messenger that these closures are not due to the party's well-publicized financial woes, but because the leases ran out at the end of 2022 and they couldn't budget past the end of 2022 because it was the end of the chair's term. 

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However, the party has ongoing financial expenses (for instance, at its headquarters in Washington, D.C.), so it's puzzling that the leases couldn't have gone for longer, and leaves the question of why the centers weren't quickly reopened after McDaniel's re-election - especially since the continuity of the centers is key to gaining community trust. More from The Messenger:

Daniel Garza, the executive director of the LIBRE Initiative, a grassroots conservative group which has worked in the Latino community for over a decade, told The Messenger the project was a cautionary tale about making sure when you experiment that you prototype and gets the bugs out first. You "don't want to go big and fail," Garza said.

"In this case they went big and it sounds like they didn't get the response from the community they intended," he said. "That's OK, they tried, we appreciate that. But you have to have people on the inside who can advise you — these are long-term things that need to be backed by resources."

RNC officials told The Messenger they plan to "re-open centers in Las Vegas; Tucson, Ariz.; Milwaukee; and Allentown, Pa. - swing state locations The Messenger found were closed through photos and in-person visits to addresses where the centers were supposed to be."

The five Hispanic community centers currently open are in New York, California, and Texas. As RedState reported in December, though, the party has big plans - plans that are dependent on donor "investment." From our report on an RNC investor call:

"They took no accountability for the elections this year. They didn't do a post-mortem. They didn't even mention them. They just talked about what a good job they were doing, then showed a slide of newspaper headlines that bolstered Ronna’s claims of doing a good job," one person on the call told RedState.

Instead, McDaniel bragged about the RNC "community centers" being opened in Native American, Hispanic, and AAPI communities, and the "Bank Your Vote" early voting campaign being rolled out in eight states.

"So I am very excited about what we have ahead of us. The candidates are great. We're working incredibly well with the sister committees. We are all team players. We're rowing in the same direction. And I hope after seeing just a smidgen of what our staff has done this year you will consider investing this year to help us keep doing that and get these offices on the ground. Elliott mentioned we want 40 of these community centers."

The Elliot mentioned by McDaniel is Elliott Echols, an RNC executive staffer. It's obvious that while McDaniel wants 40 community centers, that will only happen with "investment" by these donors. Given that the RNC had $8 million on hand at the end of 2023 and over $2 million in debt outstanding, it's quite clear that the problem is financial.

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In addition, at least one center didn't bring the wins the RNC hoped. Again, from The Messenger:

While the RNC said some centers will move, as was the case with the McAllen, Texas one being replaced with a new location in Edinburg, the temporary nature of the centers belies the initial promise that Republicans would create meaningful relationships and a longstanding presence in Hispanic communities as a counterweight to Democrats who were said to be neglecting the community.

“That makes sense because they said they had a presence in San Antonio but we never saw them really doing anything with the center," Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro told The Messenger. "We won more races in Bexar County in 2022 than we’ve won in 40 years.”

Between the poor execution and the financial difficulties, things are not looking good for Republicans hoping to reach minority voters in 2024.