POLITICO Pro
By James Hohmann
12/22/14 9:35 AM EST
The Republican Governors Association’s political director and communications director are leaving the group to start their own political consulting firm.
Ken McKay and Gail Gitcho will consult for political campaigns and corporations at the newly formed McKay-Gitcho Strategies, they told POLITICO.
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McKay and Gitcho first worked together in 2009 when McKay was the chief of staff at the Republican National Committee and Gitcho was press secretary under then-Chairman Michael Steele ahead of the 2010 midterm elections.
Gitcho was communications director on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. She also worked for the former Massachusetts governor in 2007-08 before spending the general election as a spokeswoman for John McCain. She also worked as then-Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-Mass.) official communications director, and, before that, on House side for the late Florida Rep. Clay Shaw.
McKay, as political director of the RGA this cycle, oversaw more than $100 million in political spending across 36 gubernatorial contests. Despite a map filled with Republican governors in Democratic-leaning states, the RGA went from controlling 29 governorships to 31 this year, picking up the blue states of Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts (an independent defeated the GOP incumbent in Alaska).
McKay specializes in helping Republicans compete in blue states. The Rhode Island native, who served in the Army for three years, managed the winning gubernatorial campaign in his home state for Republican Donald Carcieri in 2002. He served as Carcieri’s chief of staff during his first term and oversaw his reelection in 2006. McKay even served a stint as chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party.
McKay was a senior adviser for Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) before starting at the RGA. In 2010, he was a senior strategist for Rick Scott’s winning Florida gubernatorial campaign.
McKay lives in Rhode Island with his wife and three sons. Gitcho still lives in Boston, where Romney’s 2012 campaign was headquartered.
Outgoing RGA executive director Phil Cox and his Democratic counterpart, Colm O’Comartun, are forming 50-State LLC, a bipartisan consulting firm.
Paul Bennecke, a Georgia-based political consultant, will be the RGA’s new executive director.
Scott, who just won reelection in Florida, said in a statement that McKay and Gitcho will be “sorely missed” at the RGA.
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The post RGAs McKay and Gitcho form consulting firm – Politico appeared first on Evan Vitale Consulting Blog.
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