The Hill News

The chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) said Monday that he doesn't expect President Obama to win a second term in 2012.

Reince Priebus, the still-relatively-new head of the RNC, said he still thought more Republicans to enter the race for the Republican nomination, and that he expected the eventual victor from the primary cycle to go on to beat Obama.

"I don't expect him to be reelected," Priebus said of the president's reelection chances during an appearance on Fox News.

Party leaders are sometimes more predisposed to making optimistic claims about their candidates' chances, and Priebus's claim would seem to fall within that rubric. Still, most polls testing Obama in head-to-head matchups against his would-be R! epublican challengers suggest the president enjoys a lead, as of now, in his reelection effort.

And perhaps the biggest problem right now for Republicans is that they have no idea who that eventual candidate might be. The field appears to be close to settled following the announcement this past weekend by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) that he wouldn't seek the nomination.

Prebus said he still sees others jumping in.

"I still think it's a little early to see where this field's going to be," he said. "So I'm confident of where the Republicans are, and I'm proud of the people in the field."

And the RNC chairman cast the economy as the largest hurdle to the president's reelection -- something Obama himself has acknowledged.

"I think this election is going to be a referendum on how this president is handling the economy," Priebus asserted. "People are going to ask the famous question: Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"