Ronna McDaniel Says Fourth Term as RNC Chair Will Be Her Last

DANA POINT, Calif. – EXCLUSIVE – Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel says that after winning an unprecedented in modern times fourth term as chair of the GOP, there won’t be a fifth term in her future.

“This is my last term as chair. I’m saying it on Fox News. It’s done,” McDaniel made Friday’s declaration in an exclusive interview with Fox News

Minutes earlier McDaniel received the support of 111 members of committee, who cast ballots for McDaniel in a secret ballot vote to elect the chair. This is more than the majority needed by the 168 other members to win re-election. The vote was held on the last day of the election RNC’s winter meeting, which was held this year at a luxury seaside resort in Southern California’s Orange County. 

McDaniel beat her main challenger, a California RNC member. Harmeet Dhillon51 committee members supported him. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a strong supporter of former President Donald Trump’s repeated re-litigating of the 2020 presidential election and who ran a long shot bid for chair, received only four votes.

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Ronna McDaniel (Re-elected Republican National Committee Chair) holds a knife while speaking at Friday’s meeting of the committee in Dana Point, California. 
(AP)

McDaniel was the Michigan GOP chair. Trump’s handpicked choice Following his 2016 win, McDaniel became the chairman of the committee. He was reelected in 2019 as well as 2021. McDaniel urged stability while Dhillon, who served as a top Trump legal adviser, ran an insurgent campaign stressing that change was needed following the Republican Party’s lackluster performance in the 2022 midterms, which many in the GOP expected to be a red wave election.

“I know how hard it is to ramp up with a new chair. I wanted to keep that consistency,” McDaniel stressed this point. “We’ve made a lot of changes in my tenure with voter registration, minority outreach. The things that we’ve done have been historic. We need to continue that and do that in this next election. And then I’m happily going to pass the gavel to somebody else.”

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McDaniel is a prolific fundraiser National party During her tenure, she was the chairman of the committee. McDaniel’s electoral setbacks in November, including the Republicans losing the Senate and key gubernatorial elections, and 2018 when the party lost its House majority, and 2020 when it lost control over the Senate, led to calls for a change in leadership.

Dhillon spoke to reporters following her defeat and pointed out that she had support from the grassroots party. She also warned the RNC.

“If we go back to our homes and ignore this message, I think it’s at our peril. It’s at our peril personally, as party leaders and it’s at our peril for our party in general.”

McDaniel, when asked about these comments, stated in her Fox News interview: “I think the grassroots has been fed some misinformation from her campaign, and we’re going to reach out to them.”

“I’m going to go on a grassroots tour. I would love for her [Dhillon] to come with me. I want other leaders in our party to come with me,” She emphasized. “But they don’t always understand what the RNC does. And that’s our job to go out. But we love the grassroots. We appreciate them. We need them to go knock doors and be poll watchers. And I’m going to be traveling the country, getting them ready for beating the Democrats because we can only do that united.”

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McDaniel promised to call Dhillon or Lindell and added that “my whole campaign for this election has been unity. We need all of us. We need addition, not subtraction. And we can’t fight each other so much that we don’t recognize that we’ve got to beat the Democrats. So that’s what I’m going to do as leader of this party. I’m going to reach out to both of them.”

Ronna McDaniel, the Chair of the Republican National Committee, is embraced by a member, while Mike Lindell and Harmeet Dhillon watch as they attend Friday’s meeting in Dana Point (California).
(AP )

McDaniel was asked about any leadership roles for Dhillon who still has two years to go in her term as a RNC committee member. “we haven’t discussed anything like that.”

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The RNC showdown As the GOP elected its leader, the first race for the party’s chair was a hotly contested one in over a dozen years. As the party tries to win back control of the House, the Senate majority and the White House, the drama unfolds. It also came as the party aims to rebound from November’s disappointing results and as it debates its future and Trump’s continued grip over the GOP.

McDaniel boasted in November that over 100 members of her committee supported her. “I felt like I had strong support from the committee because they really want to keep the consistency of the things we’ve done, voter registration, election integrity. And they know it’s such a pivotal time heading into a president presidential election. So they wanted to keep that, but they understand we’re going to bring change.”