POLITICO NIGHTLY: RNC chair race gets messy

 

View in browser   BY CALDER MCHUGH  MORE KOCH FUNDED PROPAGANDA!  DON'T BELIEVE IT! Presented by Americans for Prosperity Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel is running for re-election. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images 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! A message from Americans for Prosperity: Dear 118th Congress: How will you be defined? Like those before you, will you be known for partisanship and political theater? Or, will you help solve the economic crises of our time? For too long, conventional wisdom has been that divided government is a free pass for gridlock. You can be the Congress that bucks that trend and makes life more affordable. Americans need you to succeed. Will you? Learn more at www.Dear118Congress.com.   WHAT'D I MISS? Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) announced his bid for Senate today. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images — Schiff kicks off California Senate bid: Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) kicked off a long-awaited campaign for Senate today , entering a crowded field against an incumbent, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who still hasn’t announced her reelection plans. Schiff’s announcement came just days after Speaker Kevin McCarthy officially blocked the Californian from his spot as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee — a reflection of Republican animosity toward Schiff after his high-profile roles on the select panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection and in the first impeachment investigation against former President Donald Trump. — Justice Department disrupts group behind thousands of ransomware attacks: The Justice Department announced it disrupted a notorious cybercriminal group behind ransomware attacks on more than 1,500 victims worldwide and millions of dollars in extorted payments . The announcement came amid a larger ongoing effort by the Biden administration to clamp down on ransomware attacks, which have surged in recent years and have held hostage the data of critical organizations like hospitals, governments and schools. Justice Department personnel used a court order last night to seize two back-end servers belonging to the Hive ransomware group in Los Angeles and took control of the group’s darknet website, Attorney General Merrick Garland said. — Biden grants Hong Kong residents in the U.S. a 2-year deportation reprieve: The Biden administration extended a program today that protects Hong Kong residents in the U.S. from deportation , less than two weeks before it was set to expire. The two-year extension of the program — the Deferred Enforced Departure for Certain Hong Kong Citizens — means that Hong Kongers who would otherwise be deported for having overstayed the duration of their original visas can remain in the U.S. until Jan. 26, 2025. — Change to Covid vaccine formulation signals start of FDA pivot in immunization strategy: The FDA’s expert panel on vaccines voted to recommend that anyone who gets a Covid vaccine going forward will receive a bivalent shot instead of the original formula, signaling the start of a pivot to a longer-term immunization strategy. The measure is an important first step in a process that could result in millions of Americans getting an annual Covid booster, similar to the flu vaccine .   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING : What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today .     AROUND THE WORLD EU PRESSES ‘MIGRANT RETURNS’ — European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson stressed that more rejected asylum-seekers should be reaching their own countries today as she unveiled a tougher approach in the face of surging irregular migration, writes Wilhelmine Preussen and Gregorio Sorgi . “We can do significant progress to increase the numbers of returns, and have it more effective and quicker,” Johansson said ahead of the informal meeting of EU interior ministers in Stockholm. With three times more asylum applications than irregular arrivals, reception capacities are overloaded, she said. And many applicants are not actually in the need of international protection, according to the Swedish commissioner. To prove the point, she pointed out an increase in migrant flows to Europe from “safe” countries such as Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Cuba and India. At the conclusion of the meeting, Johansson pointed to “strong commitments from the ministers” in favor of using article 25a “to a greater extent than we have done so far,” which refers to a clause in the EU visa code that would allow the bloc to apply visa restrictions for countries with low rates of migrant returns as an incentive for them to cooperate more. Diplomats indicate that this mechanism could be potentially far-reaching — member states could additionally use trade restrictions as a bargaining chip — although ministers discussed only the use of visas in the meeting. This issue could prove divisive for EU leaders in the next European Council, slated for Brussels in early February.             MORE KOCH FUNDED PROPAGANDA!                      DON'T BELIEVE IT! A message from Americans for Prosperity:     NIGHTLY NUMBER 2.9 percent The annualized rate at which the U.S. economy expanded in the fourth quarter of 2022 , once again defying predictions of a dramatic slowdown as consumers kept spending and companies continued hiring. For the year, the GDP grew at a 2.1 percent pace, shaking off negative growth in the first half of the year even in the face of rapid interest rate hikes by a Federal Reserve bent on stamping out 40-year-high inflation, the Commerce Department reported today. RADAR SWEEP FUSION OF THE FUTURE — New research from the National Ignition Facility signals that widespread use of nuclear fusion, an energy source that works by slamming light atoms together to form heavier atoms, is closer to reality than ever before. In fact, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced that the NIF achieved a milestone when researchers were able to generate power using a process called inertial confinement, which required close to 200 high-powered lasers to bounce around a capsule containing hydrogen fuel. Within seconds, the capsule created an explosion of energy. Scientists say the results could be a significant step towards a more sustainable energy future if they are able to properly harness the potentially self-sustaining fuel. Omar Hurricane, the chief scientist of the fusion program behind this result, said the most recent trials “demonstrate that there is no physics obstacle standing in the way of fusion power generation.” Read Sarah Wells’s report into the rise of this sustainable power source for VICE.   JOIN POLITICO ON 2/9 TO HEAR FROM AMERICA’S GOVERNORS: In a divided Congress, more legislative and policy enforcement will shift to the states, meaning governors will take a leading role in setting the agenda for the nation. Join POLITICO on Thursday, Feb. 9 at World Wide Technology's D.C. Innovation Center for The Fifty: America's Governors, where we will examine where innovations are taking shape and new regulatory red lines, the future of reproductive health, and how climate change is being addressed across a series of one-on-one interviews. REGISTER HERE .     PARTING WORDS Maryland Governor Wes Moore embraces Oprah Winfrey after she introduced him during his inaugural ceremony. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images DEEP BENCH — Democrats nervous about whether they have any young stars that can cut national profiles would be wise to look towards the inaugurations of Pennsylvania and Maryland’s new governors , writes Jonathan Martin . Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro made headlines for taking the oath of office last week on a stack of scripture that included a Hebrew bible from Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, site of the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history. The next day, outside Maryland’s history-drenched State House in Annapolis, it was Oprah Winfrey who left many attendees (and perhaps even a few local pols) starstruck. Winfrey introduced Gov. Wes Moore, the state’s first Black governor and only the third-ever elected African-American governor. However, the more revealing presence on stage may have been that of somebody few recognized, Lt. Col. Jamie Martinez (Ret.). Martinez took the microphone to remind an audience that included Eric Holder, Chris Tucker and Cal Ripken that the 44-year-old Moore isn’t just a political phenom: he was also a fellow soldier from the 82nd Airborne who led troops in Afghanistan. Both new governors reached deep into their states’ past to evoke America’s promise and trumpet their own. Shapiro recalled William Penn’s credo of religious tolerance and Moore reminded his audience that while they stood just up the hill from docks where slaves were brought the inauguration was no “indictment of the past” but rather “a celebration of our collective future.” If it all felt like a highly-choreographed preview of future ambitions, campaigns and perhaps swearing-ins, well, maybe it was. “This won’t be the only inauguration with him we go to,” Holder said before the festivities to get under way in Annapolis, saying of Moore that “he’s got that thing.” Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .     MORE KOCH FUNDED PROPAGANDA!                      DON'T BELIEVE IT! A message from Americans for Prosperity: Congress at a Crossroads: Americans are facing a cost-of-living crisis. Divided government can’t be an excuse to do nothing. The 118th Congress can drive a policy agenda to make life more affordable by reining in spending to get inflation under control, cutting red tape to bring down energy costs, and expanding opportunities for fulfilling work. But to do that, Washington needs to rise above the political dysfunction to get things done. Americans can’t afford to wake up two years from now to a country on the same path. Learn how we can change course at www.Dear118Congress.com.     Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh Katherine Long @katherinealong Ari Hawkins @_AriHawkins   FOLLOW US

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