The Republican National Committee will not back any 2024 presidential primary candidate, even if former President Donald Trump decides to run for a third consecutive time.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, a staunch supporter of the former president, acknowledged that the party had to stay out of the next presidential primary in an interview with the Associated Press, regardless of who decides to run.
“The party has to stay neutral. I’m not telling anybody to run or not to run in 2024,” McDaniel said. “That’s going to be up to those candidates going forward. What I really do want to see him do, though, is help us win back majorities in 2022.”
She added that the Republican base is leading the party, not Trump, though McDaniel acknowledged that he maintains “a huge, huge presence” with his supporters.
McDaniel is in a tough spot as Republicans lost the White House and the majority in the Senate, even though they picked up seats in the House and hope to retake the majority in both congressional chambers in the 2022 midterm elections.
Despite losing both Georgia Senate seats in a January runoff followed by the deadly Capitol riot the next day, McDaniel was unanimously reelected as the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, winning a third term after using Trump’s early endorsement to clear the field of any opposition earlier this month.
In the interview, she downplayed reports that the president was considering starting his own party.
“It would be basically a rubber stamp on Democrats getting elected. And I think that’s the last thing that any Republican wants,” she said. “It’s clear that he understands that.”
A former Trump campaign adviser, Jason Miller, said earlier this week that the president “has made clear his goal is to win back the House and Senate for Republicans in 2022. There’s nothing that’s actively being planned regarding an effort outside of that.”
Miller did warn, however, that the president could retaliate should Senate Republicans vote to convict him during his impeachment trial, which is set to begin next month.
