DANA POINT, Calif.— Ronna McDaniel was reelected Friday to an unprecedented fourth term as chair of the Republican National Committee after members of the national party veered away from calls for a leadership shakeup following a disappointing midterm election cycle.
Mrs. McDaniel beat back a spirited challenge from Harmeet Dhillon, an RNC member from California, who in making the case for change vowed to bolster the party’s focus on election integrity and to be more fiscally responsible with the tens of millions of dollars the party brings in from donors.
Mrs. McDaniel won with 111 votes, a majority, after only one round of voting. Ms. Dhillon received 51 votes.
Mrs. McDaniel, 49, the niece of Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, was former President Trump’s choice to lead the RNC in 2017 and ran without opposition in that race and two subsequent elections.
Mr. Trump, who is running a third time for president in 2024, remained neutral this time in the RNC contest — though Ms. Dhillon and her supporters said it was clear the former president’s allies were pushing for Mrs. McDaniel.
Mrs. McDaniel came under scrutiny from GOP die-hards and high-profile conservatives for Republican losses in the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, and for failing to summon a red wave in last year’s midterm elections.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a diehard supporter of Mr. Trump and his stolen-election claims from 2020, also ran. He received 4 votes.
Following the chairman’s race, Mrs. McDaniel called up her two opponents, thanked them and engaged in a group hug.
However, while Ms. Dhillon accepted defeat and promised to follow through with her pledge to continue supporting the party and the chair, she later told reporters that the party is still not united.
“I read the thousands of emails I get. I’ve been reading them for several years, the party is not united,” she told reporters. “But it’s our job to try to unite the party. And that’s going to mean changes at the RNC. Nobody’s going to unite around the party the way it is, which is seemingly ignoring the grassroots of the party.”
“So I do hope even though Ronna got reelected, she’s getting the wake-up call that’s coming from outside this building,” Ms. Dhillon said.
Mr. Lindell told reporters he is still willing to work with the RNC and wants to focus on the issue of electronic voting machines.
“Ronna did say that she will be open to working with me with the election crime, I call it. This isn’t about getting rid of our electronic voting machines,” he said. “It’s about getting our voter rolls cleaned up. This is what it’s about.”
The vote marked the end of several drama-filled weeks that saw the Dhillon and McDaniel camps knock heads over who was best equipped to lead the party into the 2024 election.
Ms. Dhillon claimed her opponents questioned her Sikh faith. Mrs. McDaniel’s allies accused Ms. Dhillon of being unnecessarily negative.
Kari Lake, who lost the Arizona gubernatorial election, showed up here to help Ms. Dhillon court undecided members, and to shame the media for not covering her legal efforts to overturn her loss in Arizona.
From the get-go, Ms. Dhillon was fighting an uphill battle.
Mrs. McDaniel received the pledged support of more than 100 of the RNC’s 168 members after the midterm elections, giving her a jolt of momentum in the race and scaring away some potential rivals for the job.
Mrs. McDaniel’s supporters said the incumbent was not to blame for losses in high-profile races across the country, crediting her with raising over $1 billion on her watch and building out the party infrastructure across the country.
Ahead of the vote, Ms. Dhillon pledged to support whoever was elected chairman if she lost, and to remain involved in the party.
Ms. Dhillon’s supporters cried foul over what they viewed as preferential treatment for Mrs. McDaniel at the winter meeting.
The Dhillon forces grumbled over the number of speakers at the RNC’s winter meeting who were openly backing Mrs. McDaniel’s quest to become the longest-serving chair in the party’s history.
The pro-McDaniel line-up included Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Kellyanne Conway, a former senior Trump White House counselor, and several state party chairs who had vouched for the incumbent.
Carolina Wren, a Dhillon spokesperson, said McDaniel supporters were given prime speaking slots, lamenting, “Even the prayers for the breakfast” were delivered by “people who have endorsed Ronna McDaniel.”
An RNC spokesman told The Washington Times that there was no intended bias in the speaker and chair selections at the meeting.
•: Seth McLaughlin reported from Washington.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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