(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) Ronna Romney McDaniel, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, is receiving steady heat in her bid for re-election, despite having overwhelming support from voting RNC members.
Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco-based conservative lawyer who has represented former President Donald Trump and Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, appears to be the most formidable threat, according to Politico.
Dhillon is the third high-profile RNC member to consider challenging McDaniel following criticism that the chairwoman used precious RNC funds on her own luxury lifestyle while neglecting many of the first-time candidates who foundered in the midterms after getting outspent by well-organized members of the Democrat establishment.
In November, conservative MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., both expressed interest in challenging McDaniel because of her underwhelming performance in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 election cycles.
McDaniel, the niece of longtime Trump rival Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, began her run as RNC chair the day before Trump’s 2017 inauguration.
Zeldin—whose hopes of becoming the first Republican governor of New York since 2006 were dashed in the November election—has since announced he will not pursue the position, according to the New York Post.
He said in a statement that the outcome “appears to already be pre-baked, as if the disappointing results of every election during her tenure, including yesterday in Georgia, do not and should not even matter.”
Lindell, however, is continuing to go after McDaniel. “The current RNC leadership has failed for 3 election cycles,” he said recently. “…[W]hy would she even run again if she loves our country?”
Several big-name conservative pundits, such as Tucker Carlson, Mike Huckabee, Megyn Kelly, Dan Bongino, Lou Dobbs, Kurt Schlichter and Erick Erickson, have all attacked McDaniel for the GOP’s poor performance in elections and its recent spending controversy.
However, McDaniel defended herself against these accusations on Steve Bannon’s podcast.
“The vast majority of those expenses were in support of the White House and President Trump,” she claimed.
McDaniel addressed Dhillon’s criticisms specifically.
“We file an FEC report every month,” she explained. “She [Dhillon] had ample time to raise questions and clarify.”
Romney already has been endorsed by 107 of 168 RNC members and only needs a simple majority (85 votes) to maintain her chairmanship.
Dhillon claims to have 50 endorsements, giving her a razor thin chance of securing the chair.
Gordon Kinne, a committeeman from Missouri, suggested that Dhillon was attacking the party to benefit her own brand.
“Are you actually running to become the chairman of the organization you’re currently trashing, or [are] you burnishing your own brand at the expense of your colleagues and the RNC itself?” he asked in an email on the subject.
Kinne suggested that if Dhillon has the votes she claims, she should make their identities known, so as to avoid the appearance of creating self-serving controversy.
