RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel bristles at poll showing most Republicans want her out: ‘Junk’

A conservative group hit back Friday after Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel accused the group of releasing a “junk poll” that showed only a sliver of GOP voters want to see her reelected.

Ms. McDaniel, speaking to Newsmax, criticized the poll conducted by the Trafalgar Group on behalf of the Convention of States Action.

“It was done in a junk way, so you can make a poll say anything,” Ms. McDaniel said. “It was done at a Convention of States, it was a handpicked audience. I mean, if you look at the metrics on that poll, it’s just not real.”

Ms. McDaniel criticized the survey as she tries to fend off challenges to her reelection this month as chairmanship at the RNC. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and an RNC committeewoman from California, Harmeet Dhillon, launched bids for the job before a vote this month.

The Convention of States Action defended its poll, which found 73.5% of Republicans think the party should elect someone new to lead the RNC while just shy of 6% would like to stick with Ms. McDaniel. The rest were not sure.

“We’ve watched politicians vote on bills without reading them, and similarly [Ms. McDaniel] has criticized our poll without actually having read it,” said Mark Meckler, president of the Convention of States. “Anyone can clearly see it was not conducted at a convention, and is not a ’handpicked sample,’ but rather is a nationwide, scientific poll conducted by one of the most reliable and respected pollsters in America, The Trafalgar Group.”

The survey was conducted among 1,078 Republican voters from Dec. 17 to Dec. 21 and had a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.

Republicans fared poorly in Senate races after candidates endorsed by former President Donald Trump fell short in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

The narrow House GOP majority is off to a rough start. Republicans were unable to rally behind GOP leader Kevin McCarthy as the speaker, forcing the balloting to extend into days and paralyzing the chamber.