Most unforgettable campaign moment: “I was interning for [then-first time Rep.] Ryan Zinke during that period after I first moved up to D.C. and didn’t really have a paying job, and really the only people I knew in D.C. were the people on Jeff Sessions’ staff that I’d interned with that previous summer,” he said. After “pestering” Sessions’ then-chief of staff with weekly emails, he was told, finally, to swing by the office. “I had known previously, because I read it in the news, that he was moonlighting on the Trump campaign. Well, I walk into his office and I sit down and it’s not really an interview at all, it’s just ‘Hey, you’re going to start working on the Trump campaign. Go to the office tomorrow at 10 a.m. and they’ll get you started.’ And so I’m just like, well, I didn’t even ask for this, I’m just kind of shocked. And I was like, ‘Well, do you have any advice for me?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, wear a tie and get the hell out of my office.’ So I guess that was just a big moment for me in my life.”
Biggest campaign regret: While working at the Republican Governors Association last cycle, Reinert focused on races including one in New Mexico, where Republicans hoped Mark Ronchetti, a former Albuquerque weatherman who was the party’s nominee, could potentially flip a blue state. “People loved him, and his name ID was like 98 percent, and he kind of was in the Glenn Youngkin mold of a conservative,” he said. “And so we really thought he was going to do well, and we just got completely smoked there. That was a tough pill to swallow.”
Unconventional wisdom: “I would say take a leap of faith,” he said. “I just took a chance on myself and I bet on myself and it’s really worked out. It’s not because I’m smarter than anybody else or anything like that, but I just took a chance and took that leap of faith.”
Coming up
Republican National Committee members will vote Friday on the group’s leader for the next two years. Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who is seeking a fourth term, faces challenges from Republican lawyer and RNC member Harmeet Dhillon and MyPillow executive Mike Lindell.
Photo finish
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The CQ Roll Call newsroom tracks campaigns nationwide, sharing the best stories, with some extras, in the At the Races newsletter.