PARTY CRASHER — On the eve of the vote for Republican National Committee chair, a potential 2024 presidential heavyweight weighed in on the race: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said it’s time for a change in leadership. With DeSantis riding a wave of popularity within the GOP following his 2022 reelection, the Florida governor’s imprimatur is no small thing in an election to lead the national party. But he carefully stopped short of a formal endorsement, underscoring the advantage held by current RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel. “I like what Harmeet Dhillon has said about getting the RNC out of D.C.,” DeSantis told conservative talk show host Charlie Kirk, referring to McDaniel’s only serious challenger for the post. “I think we need to get some new blood in the RNC .” The contest will be decided on Friday by a secret ballot of the RNC’s 168 members at its winter meeting in Orange County, California. The Dhillon camp argues that Republicans have underperformed in three straight election cycles, which calls for a change at the top. McDaniel counters that she brings experience, solid leadership, relationships with donors and is the only one who can shepherd the party through the coming Republican presidential primary and 2024 general election. In the past week, Dhillon has brought high-profile surrogates — including former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and country music artist John Rich — to California in an attempt to sway RNC voters who might be on the fence. After a long campaign that has included public attacks from both sides, McDaniel has over 100 public endorsements from RNC members — including two more as recently as Wednesday. That’s more than enough to win against Dhillon, who has listed just 30. But it’s a secret ballot, and Dhillon’s surrogates argue that they are swaying voters this week. Whomever comes out victorious will be responsible for building the party’s infrastructure after a disappointing midterm performance and holding the party together during what could be a messy nomination fight ahead of the 2024 election. Nightly spoke with Natalie Allison , a national political reporter who’s in Orange County covering the race for POLITICO, about the chair fight and the challenges ahead for the next Republican Party leader. This interview has been edited. Who are the main contenders and why might one or the other look like a better option to RNC members? The race for RNC chair is officially a three-way contest, between incumbent Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, the RNC’s California national committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, but it really comes down to Dhillon’s bid to oust McDaniel. (Lindell has the public support of just a single RNC member.) McDaniel’s pitch has been that she knows how to run the organization and is prepared to jump in straight away and guide the party through the presidential primary process already underway. Dhillon and her allies, folks largely representing the party’s activist class, argue McDaniel had her chance to lead the GOP to victory over her last three terms as chairwoman. It’s out of the norm for an RNC chair to serve for eight years, and Dhillon’s team is trying to put the pressure on RNC members to explain how they can justify sticking with the status quo after multiple election cycles that brought disappointment for the GOP. What are the big challenges facing the next RNC chair? A massive challenge for the next chair is how to handle what could be a disaster of a presidential primary for the Republican Party, which is beginning to test the waters for a post-Trump GOP. Both McDaniel (who Trump picked to lead the RNC after his 2016 victory) and Dhillon (who is Trump’s lawyer on some cases related to the 2020 election) have ties to the former president and have each said they’ll be neutral in the process. The next chair will likely have to lead the party into embracing mail-in voting, and supporting get-out-the-vote concepts like “ballot harvesting,” which many conservatives have spent the last couple years demonizing. But some Republicans now realize they need to embrace to compete with Democrats’ voter mobilization efforts, and the person at the helm of the GOP will need to help spearhead these strategies. And she (assuming Lindell will not be the next chair) will need to boost the GOP’s small-dollar donor operations, which have suffered in the Trump era as the former president has sucked up most of those monthly $25 activist donations for himself, leaving other Republican committees and campaigns to rely on a limited pool of big donors. What’s McDaniel’s argument for why she’s equipped to deal with those challenges? What’s Dhillon’s? McDaniel says she’s equipped for this because she has spent the last six years running the organization. She argues it’s too late to have a fresh chair come in and have to learn the ropes as the 2024 presidential race is already underway. Dhillon, in contrast, says the GOP can’t afford to continue down the same path. On the news of the day: Why do you think DeSantis indicated support for Dhillon? What about her — or McDaniel — makes him inclined to appear to throw his support behind Dhillon ? One theory, of course, would be that it’s a diss of Trump, who hasn’t publicly taken sides in the race. His top advisers have been behind McDaniel (who Trump originally picked to be his RNC chair while in the White House), so DeSantis making these comments today is a point of contrast. It’s also worth noting that Dhillon this afternoon insisted DeSantis’ remarks — which came in response to an interview question about the race — did not amount to an endorsement, and maintains she would be neutral in the 2024 primary. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on Twitter at @calder_mchugh .
MORE KOCH FUNDED PROPAGANDA!
DON'T BELIEVE IT! | 
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.