Former President Donald Trump has indicated his pick to replace the outgoing chairwoman of the Republican National Committee.
Trump endorsed Michael Whatley, the current chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, in a statement on Feb. 12 – and announced his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, should run for RNC co-chair.
“The RNC MUST be a good partner in the Presidential election. It must do the work we expect from the national Party and do it flawlessly,” said Trump in a statement. “That means helping to ensure fair and transparent elections across the country, getting out that vote everywhere – even in parts of the country where it won’t be easy – and working with my campaign, as the Republican presumptive nominee for President, to win this election and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
“I think my friend Michael Whatley should be the RNC’s next leader,” he continued. “Michael has been with me from the beginning, has done a great job in his home state of North Carolina, and is committed to election integrity, which we must have to keep fraud out of our election so it can’t be stolen.”
The Republican frontrunner described Lara Trump, who is married to his son Eric, as “an extremely talented communicator and is dedicated to all that MAGA stands for.”
Trump also said he asked Chris LaCivita to serve as Chief Operating Officer of the RNC and manage the day-to-day operations. LaCivita currently manages Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign.
“This group of three is highly talented, battle-tested, and smart,” said the former president. “They have my complete and total endorsement to lead the Republican National Committee.”
Ronna McDaniels, the current chair of the RNC, told Trump at a meeting at Mar-a-Lago on Feb. 5 that she was committed to doing whatever was best for the party – including resigning. Trump had tapped McDaniels to lead the RNC in 2017 after she led his first presidential campaign’s efforts in Michigan. However, the former president had signaled he expected a change in leadership during an interview the day before.
McDaniels “has faced pressure to resign over the party's poor performance in recent elections and lacklustre fundraising,” reported BBC.
“The RNC had one of its worst fundraising years in a decade in 2023, raising $87.2m (£69.1m) compared to the Democratic National Committee's $119m, according to recent FEC filings,” noted the outlet. “Campaign finance disclosures also showed the RNC had only $8m left in the bank and $1m in debt.”
A number of conservatives and Republicans have called for McDaniels to step down in recent years, citing the party’s less-than-dominate performance during elections in 2022 and 2023.
“I think there’s something deeper going on in the Republican Party here and I’m upset about what happened last night,” said biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy after Republicans lost in Kentucky, Virginia and Ohio, per The Washington Times. “We have a party of losers at the end of the day, there’s a cancer in the Republican establishment.”
Harmeet Dillion, who challenged McDaniels in 2022, said if the RNC had a strong leader Republicans “might have won bigger in the 2022 election, and we would be ready to win in 2024,” per Politico.
