DANA POINT, Calif. — Ronna McDaniel fended off an aggressive challenge Friday to win a fourth two-year term as chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, convincing enough members that the party’s three consecutive poor elections were not her fault.
McDaniel, who led the party in Michigan when coup-prone former President Donald Trump installed her as national chairman, defeated RNC Harmeet Dhillon of California 111-51 in the secret ballot. Election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell got 4 votes. Lee Zeldin received one vote, although he was not an official candidate.
After her unexpectedly large margin was announced, McDaniel brought Dhillon and Lindell on stage with her. His voice breaking, he thanked them and pledged to work together.
“We need all of us,” he said. “With us united and all together, Democrats will hear us in 2024.”
The race was the first contested election for the top job since 2011, when Wisconsin Gov. Reince Priebus unseated Michael Steele. That race, however, was not as contentious as Dhillon’s campaign against McDaniel, who accused McDaniel of trying to bribe members with committee positions with plums and other benefits, as well as using the NCR machine to – ensure his re-election.
How McDaniel will handle the GOP’s biggest problem — Trump’s continued influence in the party — remains unclear. Republicans lost the House in 2018, the Senate and the White House in 2020, and barely won the House by losing another Senate seat in 2022, when they expected a strong year. In all three elections, exit polls have shown that Trump has been a powerful motivator for supporting Democrats and getting swing voters to vote against Republicans.
Republican leaders across the board, and at the RNC this week, remain divided over how to handle the former president, who so far is the only announced candidate for the GOP nomination in 2024. Party officials see his unpopularity with blocs key that voters make a bad choice. in the general election, but with a few notable exceptions, I agree that the party cannot win without its fierce supporters.
A member of the RNC said on condition of anonymity that a poll of the secret committee today would find a majority ready to go for Trump. “That wasn’t true a year ago,” the insider said.
Trump, who initially said he was backing McDaniel for a fourth term, has remained officially neutral in recent weeks, even as many of his key allies — including former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway and current Trump political operations chief Susie Wiles – publicly supported McDaniel.
Meanwhile, Dhillon has won the support of both pro-Trump and anti-Trump voices within the RNC, as well as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who said Thursday the party needs new leadership.
Dhillon, an election attorney who represented Trump in his successful bid to run out of time on a Jan. 6 subpoena from the House committee, approached Trump’s issue by playing both sides. She criticized well-known Republican-leaning law firms for not representing Trump in his numerous lawsuits trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat, but then bragged about declining to get involved in the same lawsuits post-election.
New Jersey RNC member Bill Palatucci, among the few RNC members publicly advocating a break with Trump, nevertheless endorsed Dhillon. He said McDaniel’s failure to admonish Trump for his racist attacks on his own transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, and his invocation of Republican governors Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and DeSantis of Florida were unacceptable. “You can’t be a political enabler,” he said.
McDaniel’s new term runs through the 2024 presidential election, meaning he will have to lead the party through what will likely be another crowded presidential primary while continuing to deal with Trump, who could face criminal charges based on the hit of state of January 6, 2021. d’état, the attempt as well as his refusal to hand over confidential documents even in the face of a subpoena.
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