The RNC Winter Meeting just concluded in Southern California. The final and most important agenda matter was the election of the RNC Chair. There were three candidates for the position – incumbent Ronna McDaniel, election attorney Harmeet Dhillon and My Pillow founder, Mike Lindell. Ronna was elected by a vote of 111 for her, 51 for Harmeet, and 4 for Mike.
During the campaign of almost three months, I received many emails from good Republicans, to vote for change just for the sake of change. Though these good Republicans share the same frustration as myself and the other members of “the 168” – the Governing body of the RNC – at last November’s results, I proudly cast my vote for Chairwoman McDaniel for a 4th term as RNC chair to lead our party forward.
Sometimes the best leadership is a steady hand, and Chairwoman McDaniel has been that steady hand. She has been Chair of the Republican National Committee for nearly six years now, or three election cycles. Her critics charge her with three successive election losses, but those claims are as misleading as they are misplaced.
I call Ronna an infrastructure leader because that is what the RNC is, a political infrastructure support system. By next week, I will have served as Illinois State Chairman for two years. During that time, I have had an inside view of the great work Ronna has done on national Republican infrastructure and how much it has improved under her watch.
No one has worked harder to build up the RNC’s infrastructure as Chairwoman McDaniel – and it has borne fruit. In the face of strong headwinds in 2020, the Chairwoman’s leadership was instrumental in helping us pickup several house seats in tough districts that Republicans lost in 2018. Without these pickups, we would not have secured a house majority in 2022 and finally taken the Speaker’s gavel from Nancy Pelosi.
The RNC’s State Party Strategies staff provided parties like mine with significant support through the GROW Program. This infrastructure has gone to fund GOTV efforts, digital advertising, direct voter contact, and other vital resources that we need to reach Republican voters. These efforts were not always available in the past.
Ronna has been a leader on Election Integrity. For nearly 40 years, the RNC was barred from engaging in any election integrity activities by a consent decree. Ronna led the effort to have the consent decree lifted a few years ago, and the RNC has now made election integrity a major focus of the organization. In fact, during the midterm elections, the RNC recruited and trained 80,000 poll watchers and poll workers who were spread throughout the country at polling locations.
They provided resources that allowed us to fight voter integrity issues in some of our bigger counties. The RNC provided vital access to reporting systems which allowed us to more efficiently track election issues and irregularities across the state during early voting and on Election Day. The RNC has consistently provided field data and support through the Advantage mobile app and GOP Data Center – to train and channel our grassroots energy into action.
Under Chairwoman McDaniel’s leadership the RNC has also made great inroads into minority communities in major population centers in Florida, New York, Texas, and Orange County, California. The fruits of these endeavors might not be immediately noticeable, but I assure you, they will pay dividends during future Elections as new voters join our great party.
I have also had the opportunity to meet Harmeet Dhillon, who I believe to be a very smart, capable, articulate and strong leader – as well as a tremendous asset for our party. Having met Harmeet, I can understand why so many proudly support her. Both of these women are impressive and a credit to the Republican Party. If Harmeet had been elected RNC Chair, she would have had my total support, as we work to grow the Republican Party in Illinois and defeat Joe Biden in 2024.
However, Harmeet did not have any equivalent experience running an organization that’s close to the size and scope of the RNC. Further, Harmeet alleged that the RNC is a hotbed of corruption being bled by consultants and scammers — that the RNC is actually the reason we are losing races we hope to win. If that were true, then maybe something as drastic as a total, from zero, restart of the RNC might make some sense. We absolutely must root out any corruption at the RNC, but so far, none of the claims of wrongdoing have panned out. In my experience with the RNC, I simply haven’t seen evidence of the kind of corruption or mismanagement that Harmeet alleged. Further, far from the outsider that she has been branded to be, Harmeet has been an active member of the RNC, having done paid legal work on several occasions.
Ronna entered the job with an already exemplary resume that she has since built upon. She has had the experience of running a state party and of course running the RNC. Her creative and determined leadership of the Michigan Republican Party is a reason Donald Trump won in 2016, and she has set records for fundraising and support of state parties as RNC chairman.
The bottom line is that Ronna McDaniel has done an excellent job in every element of what an RNC Chairman is supposed to do in an environment that has been uniquely challenging. She’s a proven grass-roots leader with a solid plan for the next two years.
To all of my fellow Conservative Republicans who might have been disappointed in the outcome of Friday’s vote – I share your frustrations with where we stand today. But we must expand on the good work that Chairwoman McDaniel has done at the RNC and build off of the infrastructure she has built – not tear it down. Most importantly, let’s all now come together and work together to elect a Republican Senate, expand our new House majority, and most importantly defeat Joe Biden in 2024.
