The future of the Republican Party will be decided Friday as 168 Republican National Committee members gather at a swanky seaside resort in California to elect a new chair to lead them through the 2024 presidential election cycle.
This year’s vote pits third-term Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel against Harmeet Dhillon, the RNC committeewoman from California, and Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO-slash-conspiracy theorist who peddled fake narratives about widespread election fraud in the 2020 presidential race that denied former President Donald Trump a second term.
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McDaniel, who is seeking an unprecedented fourth term, has been blamed for disappointing 2022 midterm results in which Republicans failed to achieve the red wave that they had been promising. Instead, the GOP failed to regain control of the Senate and won a narrower House majority than many GOP leaders had forecast.
McDaniel has defended her record, saying certain facets of the 2022 elections were out of her control.
While McDaniel is favored to win, her opponents are likely to point out deep divisions within the party as it heads into an ugly presidential primary between Trump and a new crop of Republicans who want to move past him.
“The reality is that every time Donald Trump says ‘JUMP,’ Ronna asks ‘HOW HIGH,'” read an email sent by Tennessee Committeeman Oscar Brock to two dozen voting members.
He also took McDaniel to task for having hired current and former Trump advisers to work for the party and accused her of aiding in Trump’s efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election. Brock is part of a growing coalition in the RNC that wants to “move on” from Trump and believes that “in order to do that we must also move on from Ronna McDaniel.”
Trump has not made an endorsement, but it has been purported that he favors McDaniel, the niece of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), whom he tapped for the position soon after his 2016 victory. McDaniel has been criticized for being too close to Trump, an accusation she has attempted to twist into a positive. Recently, she claimed she is the best person to prevent Trump from forming a third party if he fails to win the 2024 GOP nomination and argues that she is in the best position to unite Republicans.
McDaniel’s camp touts the endorsement of more than 100 voting members in a letter released ahead of the election.
But Dhillon, the managing partner of Dhillon Law Group, has gone on record to say a majority of Republicans want a leadership change.
“For those members of the party who vote not with what the people in their state want but with what their own self-interest is, the next time they’re up for election, it’s going to be an issue,” she told the Associated Press.
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Tim Miller, a former adviser to GOP presidential candidates who worked at the RNC but left the party in 2020, told the Los Angeles Times not to count Dhillon out of the race.
“Harmeet has more of a shot than what the public expectations are,” he said. “The smart money is on Ronna. … The RNC chairman’s race is very inside baseball. Ronna knows all these people. She’s been working the inside game for years, which is a huge advantage. But Harmeet has tapped into legitimate frustration with the RNC.”
The RNC chairperson acts as the party’s chief executive and works with state parties to help elect Republicans across the country. The chair convenes a national convention to nominate candidates for president and vice president. She or he also presides over two annual RNC member meetings and is responsible for raising money.
Friday’s election will take place during the RNC’s open session. It’s the only part of the three-day meeting held in Dana Point, California, that is open to guests and the media.
Members will elect a chair, co-chair, treasurer, and secretary for a two-year term.
Just ahead of the vote, McDaniel will yield the gavel, and the three candidates will be formally nominated. RNC members will be called by state to cast a secret ballot for their choice. There are 168 members of the RNC made up of three representatives from each U.S. state as well as its territories.
After the ballots are tallied, the results will be read. If no candidate wins a majority of the 168 votes, the process will be repeated until one candidate wins, similar to how House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was elected to his post following 15 grueling rounds of voting.
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If a member decides not to vote or leaves their ballot blank, it decreases the number of votes needed to win.
Low-performing candidates are not eliminated but can choose to bow out of the race.
