Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel won re-election on Friday, bringing to an end nearly two months of barbs and accusations amid a major fight for the future of the GOP.
“With all of us united, the Democrats are going to hear from us in 2024,” McDaniel said from the podium after the results of the ballot was announced.
McDaniel won the support of 111 committee members who cast ballots in a secret ballot vote for chair, more than the majority of the 168 members needed to secure a fourth two-year term steering the RNC, which is unprecedented in modern times. The vote took place on the final day of the RNC’s winter meeting, which was held this year at a luxury seaside resort in Southern California’s Orange County. One vote went to former New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin, who considered running but was not nominated in the race.
The chair defeated her main challenger, California committee member Harmeet Dhillon, who won the support of 51 committee members. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a strong supporter of former President Donald Trump’s unproven claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and who ran a long-shot bid for chair, received only four votes.
“The work to make Joe Biden a one-term president is already underway: it is time for our party to unite and re-dedicate ourselves to electing Republicans up and down the ballot. I look forward to working alongside conservative leaders, including Harmeet and Mike, from across our party to deliver on our promises to the American people,” McDaniel added in a statement following the vote.
DESANTIS WEIGHS IN, TRUMP STAYS NEUTRAL, IN GOP CHAIR BATTLE
The RNC showdown, the party’s first hotly contested chair race in a dozen years, became a contentious family feud as the GOP decided its leadership. The drama unfolded as the GOP jumps into an election cycle seeking to win back the White House, regain the Senate majority and hold its fragile control of the House. It also came as the party aims to rebound from a disappointing showing in November’s midterm elections and as it debates its future and Trump’s continued grip over the GOP.
Following her loss, Dhillon said the party will “will be better for the tough conversations that were desperately needed about how to reform the RNC to win elections and earn the trust of our voters, activists, and donors.”
She also promised to work with the RNC and grassroots organizers headed into the 2024 election.
“It is critical for our chances in 2024 that those who supported my campaign rally around our party and its candidates so we can win elections and deliver badly-needed results for the millions of Americans suffering under the far-left agenda of [President] Biden, [Sen. Chuck] Schumer, and their cronies bent upon the destruction of the America we know and love,” Dhillon said.
Charlie Kirk, who leads the conservative advocacy organization TurningPoints USA and had called for new leadership at the RNC, expressed disappointment at McDaniel’s win.
“It shows that a majority of the members of the RNC have contempt for the people that put them there,” Kirk told Fox News Digital. “I cannot in good faith tell our audience… to keep giving money to the RNC. In fact, I tell them not to.”
McDaniel, who as Michigan GOP chair was Trump’s handpicked choice to steer the committee after he won the White House in 2016, was re-elected to the post in 2019 and 2021. McDaniel urged stability while Dhillon, who served as a top Trump legal adviser, ran an insurgent campaign stressing that change was needed following the Republican Party’s lackluster performance in the 2022 midterms, which many in the GOP expected to be a red wave election.
In a national exclusive interview ahead of the vote, McDaniel told Fox News that RNC members “trust my leadership, and they know this is a critical, pivotal time that we cannot take down the infrastructure of the RNC and then be successful in 2024.”
GOP BRAWL: THE COMPETITIVE AND COMBUSTIBLE BATTLE FOR RNC CHAIR
McDaniel has been a prolific fundraiser for the national party during her tenure leading the committee. According to McDaniel’s team, the chairwoman has hauled in a record $1.5 billion during her tenure, traveled more than half a million miles and held more than 330 donor events.
But the GOP electoral setbacks in November during McDaniel’s tenure, such as the Republicans failing to win back the Senate and losing key gubernatorial races, as well as in 2018 when the party lost the House majority and in 2020 when it lost control of the Senate and the White House, sparked calls for a change of leadership.
“The job of politics is elections, and it’s a binary choice. If we win, they lose, and vice versa. And we’ve had too much losing over the last few years,” Dhillon told Fox News in a sit-down interview on the sidelines of the RNC meeting.
On the eve of the highly anticipated vote, one of the most popular politicians in the GOP weighed in on the race, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called for “a change” and urged “new blood” at the RNC. The conservative governor, who has seen his standing soar among conservatives across the country over the past three years, proceeded to give a shout-out to Dhillon.
Trump, who arguably remains the GOP’s most popular and influential politician and the only major contender to date to launch a 2024 presidential campaign, remained neutral, saying he liked both McDaniel and Dhillon.