Republican National Committee Chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, gavels the call-to-order on the opening of the primary day of the Republican National Convention, in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S., August 24, 2020.
Chris Carlson | Reuters
Ronna McDaniel won re-election to a fourth term as Republican National Committee chairwoman on Friday, besting insurgent challenger Harmeet Dhillon in a secret ballot vote on the party’s annual winter meeting.
McDaniel easily secured a majority of the 168 votes needed to win, with 111 votes in comparison with 51 for Dhillon, 4 for MyPillow founder Mike Lindell and one for former Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., who was not a candidate.
McDaniel is now on target to be the longest-serving GOP chair because the nineteenth century. She joins Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in staving off challenges to their leadership following Republicans’ disappointing performance within the November midterm elections.
The competition was seemingly a foregone conclusion for months. McDaniel released an endorsement letter from greater than 100 of the RNC’s 168 members shortly after the midterms — support that led to Zeldin deciding to not launch his own bid to guide the RNC.
But with the vote held by secret ballot, and Dhillon’s aggressive campaign arguing that McDaniel mustn’t be re-elected after GOP shortcomings in November, members didn’t write Dhillon off ahead of the vote. Publicly, roughly 30 RNC members had committed to Dhillon ahead of the ballot.
Lindell, a number one election conspiracist, launched a long-shot bid but never picked up much momentum.
McDaniel’s supporters argued she was best positioned to maneuver the party forward due to her resource allocation and solid working relationship with state party leadership.
Even with McDaniel in place as the following chair, many RNC members say they expect tensions to stay.
“After that is over tomorrow, it is not over,” said Jonathan Barnett, an RNC committeeman from Arkansas who backed Dhillon to guide the party. “It will take a while to do some rebuilding, and Harmeet still has a powerful voice. All of us who’re supporting Harmeet usually are not going away.”
The RNC also approved a package of nine resolutions on Friday in a voice vote. They included measures condemning antisemitism, opposing ranked-choice voting, calling for President Joe Biden to be held accountable for his administration’s handling of the U.S. border with Mexico, pushing for the U.S. to “shut down” any “Chinese police station” operating within the country and to broadly discourage the usage of TikTok — including encouraging a ban on its use on federal government devices.