WASHINGTON – Kevin McLaughlin is one of those D.C. political operatives who quietly moves mountains behind a desk on Capitol Hill for 14 hours a day for two solid years and then finds himself unemployed after Election Day.
The Edina native is deputy executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the campaign arm for the Senate Republicans. He had essentially one charge from 2014 to 2016: Keep the upper chamber in Republican hands.
From his gray-and-white office bedecked with Minnesota garb, McLaughlin worked relentlessly. He conducted polls. He watched countless political campaign ads. He raised money (the NRSC raised about $120 million in the past two years. The Democrats raised about $30 million more.) He helped campaigns with messages that appealed to voters. He focused on research. Sometimes he even told candidates what not to say.
And his toiling paid off: Depending on final results of an exceedingly tight Louisiana Senate race, the Republicans are presiding over 51 or 52 seats and the Democrats have 46 or 47 until 2018.
"It's a mandate to govern. I think we'll do good things. I think we'll do big things," said McLaughlin, 42, and a graduate of the University of St. Thomas.
"I think you'll see the repeal of Obamacare. … I just think that [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell wants to govern," he said. "[Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer wants to govern. Trump wants to govern. The House wants to govern. It's a good place to start."
Asked how it feels to have presided over one of the biggest Republican sweep years in modern history, McLaughlin chuckled and noted that he didn't start out with an easy map to victory.
"There's nothing more motivating than people telling you you can't do something," he said. "In the beginning of this cycle, it wasn't if we were going to lose, it was how many seats are we going to lose, it was how quickly our majority is going to be gone."
