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Members of the Republican National Committee gave Ronna McDaniel a fourth term as president on Friday, despite a strong challenge from a Trump-linked lawyer who said the party had to rein in excessive spending and do better in the election.
McDaniel, who had the private endorsement of former President Donald Trump, defeated Harmeet Dhillon by a vote of 111 to 51 after just one round of voting.
MyPillow founder and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell got just four votes.
Members were selecting a party chief executive who will manage fundraising and build much of the national infrastructure for the 2024 campaign.
It marked a test of Trump’s control over the party, pitting McDaniel, whom he propelled to power, against other elements of his MAGA movement.
Ronna McDaniel easily defeated Harmeet Dhillon on Friday to secure a fourth term as chair of the Republican National Committee, after a bitter campaign amid allegations of mismanagement, wasteful spending and even religious bigotry.
MyPillow CEO and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell garnered enough support to make it to the ballot, but won just four votes on Friday’s ballot.
McDaniel issued a call to unity immediately after the results were announced at the Waldorf Astoria Monarch Beach, California, ballroom.
We need each other. We hear them from the grassroots,” he said.
‘We know. We listen to Harmeet, we listen to Mike Lindell, but with us united and all together, the Democrats will listen to us in 2024 when we take back the White House and the Senate.”
But the contest revealed deep divisions between the different wings of the party.
It’s the first time the job has been contested in a decade, as McDaniel’s critics lined up to say the RNC had to do a better job after disappointing election results in 2018, 2020 and 2022.
Dhillon campaigned aggressively. Dhillon blamed the midterms on McDaniel’s doorstep, saying the RNC failed to mobilize the vote as well as the Democratic Party, which was able to hold on to the Senate and limit losses in the House.
He also accused the incumbent of chronic wasteful spending, wasting tens of millions of dollars on consultants and religious fanaticism against Dhillon’s Sikh faith, all claims McDaniel denied.
But McDaniel’s supporters argued that the midterm problems lie with weak candidates and have said she is the unity candidate.
Before the vote, he said the midterm elections had gone better than the main results suggested.
McDaniel’s campaign has said for months that it had the support of more than 100 of the committee’s 168 members and was confident of victory on Friday’s first ballot.
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“We won the popular vote by four million votes,” he told RNC members.
If this had been a presidential year. we would have won the Electoral College with 297 votes. That’s a very good sign as we head into 2024.”
The battle was the latest show of division in the party, shortly after members of Congress nearly came to blows earlier this month. ultimately electing Representative Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House on the 11th ballot.
Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was one of the high-profile figures who endorsed Dhillon.
He said the bases were tired of losing.
‘The general feeling is like, okay, you raise massive amounts of money. You spend such a questionable time, and then what do you have to show like a four-seat majority in the House and you lose the Senate, she said.
And I think that’s completely and totally unacceptable. I think the stakes have never been higher for our country.’
Speaking ahead of the result, he said he would not be able to tell his supporters to back the RNC if McDaniel remained in place.
“If she wins, I cannot in good faith tell my audience, our members or our students to continue to support the RNC financially or otherwise,” he said.
‘And I’m not saying that in any celebratory way or with a heart for arson, because it takes a strong NCR.’
But without substantial change, your money won’t help make a profit, he added. x
Dhillon’s campaign got a boost Thursday when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said it was time for “new blood” at the top of the NCR and that he liked some of his plans.
“We’ve had three poor election cycles in a row: ’18, ’20 and ’22,” DeSantis told Florida’s Voice.
‘And I would say out of the three, ’22 was probably the worst given the political environment of a very unpopular president in Biden.
‘Large majorities of people think that the country is headed in the wrong direction.
‘That’s an environment that is tailor-made for making progress in the House and Senate and state chambers across the country. And yet that did not happen.
In fact, we lost ground in the Senate.