Walden to chair NRCC

by Alexandra Jaffe - 11/14/12 9:04 PM ET

Walden, who has served as NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions’s (R-Texas) top deputy for the past two cycles, cited his experience in the position as preparation for his service as chairman in a release issued by the NRCC, admitting he has “big, Texas-sized boots to fill.”

“Under Chairman Sessions’s leadership at the NRCC, House Republicans have won the two biggest majorities since World War II. I have big, Texas-sized boots to fill, but as Pete’s deputy for the last four years, I’ve helped implement a shared vision for the NRCC and now seek to build on that foundation,” he said in a statement.

{mosads}Sessions said he was “delighted” at the pick, and touted their work together in the NRCC over the past two cycles.

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“As a team at the NRCC for the past four years, Greg and I successfully retired Nancy Pelosi as Speaker and stayed on offense to reelect a strong Republican majority in the House,” he said.

Though the GOP was able to retain its majority in 2010, it did not, as the party hoped, expand its hold on the House, losing about eight seats in 2012. Walden acknowledged this in a letter to his Republican colleagues earlier this week, in which he asked for their support.

“Last week — due to your hard work and the leadership of Chairman Pete Sessions and our team at the NRCC — we locked into place most of the historic gains we made in the House in 2010. But we also came up short in some key races and have important lessons to learn from our losses as we go forward into 2014,” he wrote in the letter.

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