Hillsborough republicans weighs in on election, outlook for party in 2016

TAMPA - While Democrats are enjoying re-election, Republicans are focusing on re-evaluation.

"Of course I am disappointed in the outcome," says Art Wood, Chairman of the Hillsborough County Republican Party. Wood says despite that disappointment, the party has reason to be proud, especially locally.

"I am also just really pleased with just the very positive things that have come out of it," Wood said Wednesday.

 "The way the candidates ran their campaigns, the thousand volunteers we probably had that pulled together to make this happen."

He says there were only a handful of staff members that actually got paid for their services. He also mentioned a lot of the frustration comes from preliminary poll numbers and early predictions that seemed to put the win in Governor Romney's favor.

At this point, though, he says looking forward is the only way to proceed with bi-partisan legislation.

"For the short term let's just unite behind the President, be non-partisan and show what the true American spirit is. And in the long term, we're going to figure out what Republicans have to do to regain the White House."

When asked about 2016 and the chance for the Republican's to take the reigns in Washington again, Wood had the following to say:

"Oh my gosh! Somebody told me how many days there are until the next election and I almost fell out of my chair, I don't even want to think about that for a while."

And while there were still 3,800 votes to still be counted as of 11:45 a.m. EST in Hillsborough County, it would appear President Obama has won in the county. Art Wood says that is yet another reason why the Republican Party will be taking a long look at their campaign tactics for the next time.