Conservative talk radio show host Rush Limbaugh keeps hammering home the importance of Republicans speaking out about the social issues.

Following Matt Bevin’s victory in the Kentucky gubernatorial race, Limbaugh reiterated that point on his show on Wednesday:

“The left is in a state of shock today because everything that they think means death for the Republican Party meant victory yesterday.  They think discussing the social issues is death for the Republican Party.  Discussing them got a man elected governor of Kentucky.  They thought in Houston, “Slam dunk, this civil rights thing on transgender,” whatever it was. “Slam dunk! The left’s gonna win this going away.”  They lost big.  They can’t believe it.  They’re in shock over this.

And it was not just localized in regions, although the South had a great night last night, other than one state. North Carolina still is an outlier, but for the most part this was all over the fruited plain, folks.  The Democrat Party was rejected over and over and over again.  Liberalism was sent packing over and over and over again.  Barack Obama — because he’s the leader of liberalism and the Democrat Party — by virtue of his association, he was rejected over and over again yesterday.”

Limbaugh argued back in September that social issues are a winner for Republicans:

“…this whole business of the Republican Party and/or conservatives needing to shut up about social issues is a trap…There are supposedly conservative media people that have arisen: “Carly Fiorina scares me. Oh, my God, did you hear what she said about Planned Parenthood? Oh, my God, did you hear what she said about abortion?”  So even today the woman who everybody says won the debate praising her to the hilt says, “But but but stop talking about that, because we can win talking about that.”

Isn’t it interesting how the Democrats and the media continue to tell us what we have to do to win, as though they are interested in that. We can’t win unless we support amnesty along with them. We can’t win unless we support gay marriage. We can’t win unless we get wise on gun control. We can’t win unless we understand to shut up about abortion and, quote, unquote, the social issues.

And if you’ll get the sum total of what they’re telling us, we can’t win unless we behave exactly like them.  But the whole idea of them telling us what we have to do to win ought to make everybody suspicious to begin with… because they don’t want us to win. It’s amazing how we’ve fallen.”

We praised Limbaugh for making the case for social issues previously, and now after Tuesday’s results, it’s clear that he was right.

Limbaugh is echoing much of what American Principles Project said in their 2013 election autopsy, which also called on Republicans to embrace the social issues in order to win.

Jon Schweppe is Deputy Director of Communications for the American Principles Project.