Bob Paduchik

Robert Anthony Paduchik is Co-Chairman of the Republican National Committee. He is a veteran campaign strategist and the president of the strategy firm Agincourt Consultants, domiciled in Westerville, Ohio.

Career

Paduchik started his professional career at Ohio Department of Transportation during the tenure of Governor George Voinovich. In 1994, Paduchik was the coordinator for Northeast Ohio during the senate campaign of Mike DeWine and then served on the Senator’s staff. He became political director in Bob Taft’s campaign to become Governor of Ohio in 1998. After the successful campaign, he was appointed Director of Constituent Affairs responsible for Minority, Veterans and Cultural affairs.^[1] In the year 2000, he was executive director of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio,^[2] on leave from his usual job as political director of Ohio's governor Taft.^[3]

After the election, Paduchik was a member of the Department of Defense Transition Team and was later appointed by George W. Bush as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy. He served in this capacity between October 2001 and January 2003.^[4] During this time, he was a driving force in the so-called Yucca Mountain Project.^[5]

Paduchik afterwards founded his own company, Agincourt Consultants, in the Columbus, Ohio area.^[6] Shortly thereafter, he was asked to run Bush's reelection efforts in Ohio in 2004 and succeeded through a grassroots campaign which included the help of about 85,000 volunteers^[7] to motivate up to 175,000 new voters, most of whom where presumably Republican, to cast their votes.^[8]

He then again moved to the private sector, where he became Vice-President of Client Services at the public affairs firm DCI Group before joining Rob Portman's team, a former Congressman from Cincinnati, who ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate in February 2009.^[9]

In February 2011, Paduchik became Senior Vice President, State Affairs and Outreach for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).^[10]

When the Trump campaign gained traction after the candidate's success in the primaries in 2016, it was in need of an experienced leader for the key state of Ohio. They asked Paduchik who became campaign manager and was later described as "the architect of President-elect Donald Trump’s wildly successful campaign in Ohio".^[11] This success was considered to be even more notable for the fact that the Republican's campaign started more than four weeks later than Hillary Clinton's^[12] and only had a relatively small staff.^[13] Another burden the campaign had to overcome was a certain opposition by Ohio GOP leaders against candidate Trump, which in fact kept on until late in the campaign and led to a public exchange^[14] between Paduchik and Matt Borges, GOP's chairman in Ohio in October 2016.^[15] In December 2016, however, Borges announced in an interview, his support for Bob Paduchik's upcoming election as deputy chairman of the RNC.^[16]

In December 2016, President-elect Donald Trump announced Paduchik as next RNC Deputy Co-Chairman,^[17] poised to become Co-chairman of the RNC in 2017.^[18] Indeed, Paduchik’s as well as his superior Ronna McDaniel’s election by the Republican National Committee which took place on January 2017 were unanimous.^[19]

In February 2018, Trump praised Paduchik during an RNC dinner for his handling of thecampaign in the swing state of Ohio.^[20]

Education

Paduchik earned a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Akron ('89)^[21] and an honorary certificate in applied politics from the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.^[22]

Private life

Paduchik lives in Genoa Township in Ohio with his wife and two daughters. The native of Tallmadge, Ohio^[9] is a member of the St. Gregory of Nyssa Orthodox Church. He is a member of the board of the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio Foundation as well as a certified coach for the U.S. Soccer Federation.^[6]

References