Mr. Steele made the announcement in a conference call with members of the Republican committee, some of whom have already pledged their support to one of the half-dozen candidates vying to replace him. He did not take questions in the 40-minute call or address many of the challenges facing his candidacy, including the financial management of the committee that is ending the year $15 million in debt.
“Yes, I have stumbled along the way but have always accounted to you for such shortcomings,” Mr. Steele said, according to participants on the call, who later received a prepared statement. “No excuses. No lies. No hidden agenda.”
“Our work is not done,” he added, “and my commitment has not ended.”
The decision by Mr. Steele was met with anger and astonishment from an array of Republican officials. It was far from clear that his bid for a second term would be successful or that he would emerge as one of the leading contenders on Jan. 14, when the committee elects a chairman to guide the party through an election cycle where the chief goal is defeating President Obama.
The Republican Party, which is often steeped in discipline and order among the ranks of top leaders, has become a cauldron of internal controversy. The announcement by Mr. Steele upended the chairman’s race and ensured that a fight over the party’s direction would play out even as Republicans assume the majority in the House next month.
Henry Barbour, a member of the Republican committee from Mississippi and a nephew of Gov. Haley Barbour, has led an effort to find a new chairman. After listening to Mr. Steele on the call, Mr. Barbour expressed dismay over the announcement and said the 2012 election cycle demanded new party leadership.
“While I like Michael Steele personally, I don’t believe he has earned a second term,” Mr. Barbour said. “We need a chairman who will raise the money, spend it wisely, organize our troops and stay on message.”
The election of a chairman will also serve as something of a proxy battle over the next steps for the party, with the Republican establishment facing new challenges with the rise of the Tea Party movement. The fight for the Republican presidential nomination has also heightened interest and importance in the chairman’s race.
Mr. Steele has sought to tap into grass-roots activism to build support against a wave of skepticism from Republican officials, many of whom presided over the committee in the administration of President George W. Bush. They have blamed Mr. Steele for nearly bankrupting the party by failing to keep leading Republican contributors engaged and by practicing loose spending habits.
“I believe the worst thing we can do now is to look backwards,” Mr. Steele said in his remarks prepared for the conference call. “Who you elect as our next chairman will speak volumes about our willingness to truly be the party of Lincoln.”
Mr. Steele, the first black chairman of the Republican Party, has been a contentious presence at the Republican National Committee since shortly after he arrived. He vowed to correct what he called a Republican “image problem,” and members of the committee believed that the party needed a new face after suffering punishing losses in Congress and at the White House in the 2006 and 2008 elections.
But he has spent much of his tenure apologizing for televised gaffes, defending his management style and challenging critics from within the party. He was in a similar position on Monday evening, according to participants of the conference call, offering a forceful defense of the party’s financial condition and criticizing his detractors for “talking a lot of trash about fund-raising and talking a lot of smack about major donors.”
With Mr. Steele confirming his candidacy to seek re-election, he joins a crowded field of contenders, including Reince Priebus, chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party and a former ally of Mr. Steele; Ann Wagner of Missouri, who served as ambassador to Luxembourg in Mr. Bush’s administration; Maria Cino, a political strategist who has the support of former Vice President Dick Cheney; Saul Anuzis, a former party chairman in Michigan; and Gentry Collins, who delivered a scathing assessment of Mr. Steele as he resigned last month as the committee’s political director.
The party chairman who preceded Mr. Steele, Mike Duncan, is also considering a run. The chaotic campaign, in which candidates are competing for the support of the 168 members on the committee, could draw even more candidates in the final month.
In the conference call on Monday evening, Mr. Steele read through a list of the party’s accomplishments in the midterm elections and explained why he believed he deserved to serve a second term. As Mr. Steele prepared to open the public phase of his re-election campaign with an interview on Fox News with Greta Van Susteren late Monday, several Republican officials voiced their displeasure at this decision.
“I’m surprised with all the drama leading up to this that he is running for a second term,” said Steve Scheffler, a Republican committee member from Iowa. “His tenure as chairman has been a disaster. For the sake of our republic, we must elect a chairman who can help carry us to victory in 2012 to defeat the Obama socialist agenda.”
But Doyle Webb, chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, said he was considering supporting Mr. Steele because of his strategy in the midterm elections of treating smaller states with greater respect. He said the financial commitment from Mr. Steele was critical in turning Arkansas, long dominated by Democrats, into “a two-party state.”
“I think Michael Steele has a lot of questions he needs to answer,” Mr. Webb said in an interview, conceding that Mr. Steele could face a challenging path to re-election. “Does he want to be chairman for the next two years? Can he raise all the money that’s needed?”
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