The Republican National Committee (RNC) in January will vote for a new chairman or reelect incumbent Chairwoman Ronna McDaniels, but at what cost as a deep divide continues to grow between grassroots conservatives that support Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon and those establishment-type that back McDaniels.
McDaniels has recently announced that she has the support of the majority of the voting RNC membership, but Dhillon, who is receiving unprecedented support from national conservatives like Mark Levin, Kari Lake, Megyn Kelly, and Reps. Cory Mills and Matt Gaetz, to name a few, not intimidated.
“The battles we face demand our brightest legal minds, not low-energy podcasters. A serious party needs serious leadership which is why I'm proud to endorse Harmeet Dhillon for RNC Chair,” said Congressman Matt Gaetz.
The ongoing war of words between Rep. Gaetz and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appears to have spilled over into the RNC chairman’s race.
Leader McCarthy along with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have both endorsed McDaniels’s bid for reelection to the committee.
Dhillon, who has been a member of the RNC for 6 years and is an accomplished attorney that has helped Republican candidates run for office in the past, spoke to The Floridian in an exclusive interview where she did not hold back her frustration with the RNC leadership’s lack of results and its “swampy nature.”
Dhillon believes that the job of the RNC chairperson is to “create the environment for Republicans to win” and to make sure the party resources are allocated to winning elections not “blowing money” on overpaid political consultants.
“Somebody make me the case why Ronna McDaniel should maintain her job at the RNC. She took over in 2017 and has presided over a blowout in 2018, a presidential loss in 2020, two run-off losses in 2021, and the loss of the Senate and wild GOP House underperformance in 2022.” – Ben Shapiro
“If she [Ronna] were an SEC football coach, she would have been out a long time ago.” – Erik Erickson
“We need some new leadership at the RNC.” - Kari Lake
“The question shouldn't be whether or not Ronna McDaniel can put together the votes to get re-elected to another term, I believe the real question our party needs to have is whether or not she should be running for a fourth term - and I believe the answer to that is no.”- Rep. Lee Zeldin
Interestingly enough, Dhillon breaks with the conventional conservative wisdom and the mindset to oppose early voting.
Dhillon believes that the part needs to focus on developing “infrastructure that gets our ballots into the ballot boxes” and believes that Republicans need to take advantage of early voting across the country, and play the election game “by the rules that we have, not the rules that we wish we had.”
“Even as many states, have some form of early voting. We have been reluctant to push that (early voting) because some of our voters don’t like it. However, we have to get over that,” added Dhillon. “We are not going to win elections if we are not playing the game by the rules that we have, not the rules that we wish we had.”
Dhillon continued to make her case for early voting, saying that Republicans can be “very successful in outperforming Democrats in the targeted areas and hustling the ballots into the ballot boxes and doing it at the earliest possible opportunity.”
Dhillon says that “Claiming your vote early” and “getting your ballot in before anyone can interfere with it” should be “Job One” for Republicans, adding that Republican leadership should “make sure that every republican ballot reaches the ballot box.”
DeSantis’s Florida
While she is a big fan and supporter of both former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Dhillon will not take a side in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary race between the two men.
Instead, Dhillon carefully threaded the needle in talking about a potential Trump vs. DeSantis presidential primary race, but did acknowledge that a primary race between DeSantis and Trump is not just some pipedream, but could turn out to be a reality.
“Florida you know has two of the potential presidential candidates, certainly one is announced and the other one may or may not be from Florida,” said Dhillon before acknowledging that “Florida will be a big player in our 2024 convention.”
The Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) has had significant intra-party disputes that have left egos bruised within the state party.
Florida GOP Chairman Joe Gruters, who has endorsed McDaniels over Dhillon, has been at the center of the controversy within the party since 2019 and is not seeking reelection, rather is running for treasurer of the RNC.
Dhillon believes that the national GOP party should not be involved with what state Republican parties are doing.
“Florida has a strong Republican Party and I think the party chair, who is elected I believe next month… should be trusted to know what's best for Florida. So, I would not be telling the Florida GOP how to spend their money or what to do with it,” stated Dhillon before adding that she would instead have a conversation with them to see what resources they needed.
Speaking of controversy,
“Regardless of how the state party vote shakes out on the chair, Gruters said he’s sticking with McDaniel”
So Joe Gruters, who is elected by the FLGOP state executive committee, says he doesn’t care what the FLGOP state executive committee thinks when it comes to re-electing RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel to an unprecedented fourth term?
What is even more egregious is that Joe Gruters moved the FLGOP’s annual meeting date from January to February so the State GOP Executive Committee will elect a new chairman AFTER the RNC election which is set to take place on January 27 in Dana Point, CA. Both candidates running to replace Gruters as FLGOP Chair - Christian Ziegler and Evan Power - have endorsed Harmeet Dhillon for RNC Chair.
What FLGOP Chair Joe Gruters has done is unprecedented. By delaying the vote, Gruters has essentially extended his 2 year term as State GOP Chair so he could vote for Ronna McDaniel despite what the FLGOP Executive Committee wants, despite what the GOP grassroots want, despite what the two candidates who are running to replace him as FLGOP Chair want.—Marc Caputo for NBC
The three voting members for Florida include Joe Gruters, National Committeeman Peter Feaman and National Committeewoman Kathleen King.
Republican Leadership Weakness/ 2020 Failures
Dhillon contends that Democrats have been dictating Republican messaging for years, and that the GOP has been “playing defense” against Democrats with a “muddled” and “unclear, ” and “reactionary” message.
Republicans should be able to draw the obvious contrast between the “Marxist ideology” Democrats are offering, as opposed to what they are offering, contends Dhillon
“COVID was a beautiful opportunity that came along for Democrats to loosen our election integrity rules nationwide,” said Dhillon
The California native also believes the 2020 failure was also the fault of poor Republican leadership at the gubernatorial and state legislative levels.complicity of Republican governors and legislators.
“We did not have a team of lawyers ready to jump up and defend our election laws,” said Dhillon before posing the question, “How do we give the party a pass in 2022?”
The highly-anticipated RNC election between McDaniels and Dhillon will take place on January 27 in Dana Point, California.
