Growing Number of Republicans Say It’s Time for Change in RNC Leadership

Due to the massive underperformance of the GOP during the midterm elections, calls for new leadership at the Republican National Committee are growing among prominent Republicans. 

Current RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel recently announced that she will be running for another term. She has held this position since 2017 and a majority of RNC members support her. 

“We, the undersigned members of the Republican National Committee, are proud to offer our endorsement for your re-election as Chairman of the Republican National Committee,” reads a letter to McDaniel signed by 101 members.

McDaniel made the RNC “stronger and more effective,” according to the letter.

Chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party Dr. Kelli Ward says that she believes it is time for a change at the RNC. 

“Ronna told us in January of 2021 that she was not going to run again, that this was her last term,” Ward said on the John Solomon Reports podcast. “She said she wanted to rectify some of the things that happened in 2020. Those things haven’t been rectified and have not been fixed. I think it’s time for change at the top of the RNC. I think Ronna should gracefully exit and allow someone else to come in and lead this organization.”

Some of the names have bandied about as possible successors to McDaniel include New York Rep. Lee Zeldin, CPAC Senior Fellow Mercedes Schlapp, and attorney Harmeet Dhillon. 

Zeldin has not announced if he is going to run, but GOP politicians and leaders such as former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Republican Party of Texas Chairman Matt Rinaldi said they would support him if he did.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said that Republicans need to hold their leadership accountable and look hard at why the GOP has performed badly over the past two election cycles. 

“We have to look at our party leadership and hold them accountable to winning, and to making sure they’re providing us the guidance that we need,” Noem said Friday on the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. 

“I think we got to ask ourselves, why we’re not winning,” Noem said. “We had a rough election cycle as well as the previous one to this where we lost the Senate, the House and the White House. Now that we underperformed in this election cycle, we need to look at what we’re doing and why we’re not winning. Frankly, I’m sick of having those types of situations.”

The South Dakota governor said that the upcoming Georgia runoff will be the test to see if the GOP is going in the right direction. 

“It’ll be interesting to see what happens in Georgia,” Noem concluded. “I think that’s a key indicator on if we’re going in the right direction, and how much our party is really putting out on the line to make sure that we can win these types of races that are so important.”

Former Trump adviser Kash Patel said that the presumptive presidential nominee will determine the next chairman or chairwoman of the RNC. 

“That decision is just for the Republican Party to make, and essentially it’ll come down to the next president’s presumptive nominee and probably President Trump,” Patel said on “Just the News, No Noise.”

“If he’s got confidence in [McDaniel], she’ll stay,” he said. “If not, you know, there’ll be a change.”

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