'Weirdest thing I’ve ever seen': Race for RNC head tightens up

The race to win election as the head of the Republican National Committee is tightening as it gets down to the wire with a vote planned at a California retreat this coming week.

While current head Ronna McDaniel believes she has the majority of the votes of the 168 members who will be casting ballots, Politico is reporting that top challenger, attorney Harmeet Dhillon, is making a "full court press" to pick up more support and has begun courting members of the anti-Donald Trump faction despite the fact that she is a supporter of the former president.

With Trump refusing to endorse either of the top two candidates, stating, "let them fight it out," the two have been scrambling to take votes from one another prior to the meet-up.

According to Politico's Natalie Allison and Meredith McGraw, Dhillon's "efforts have included reaching out to some of the biggest names in Republican politics," adding, ".... her team has also made a concerted effort in recent days to court a small number of anti-Trump RNC members, according to two people familiar with the strategy. They’ve sought to make the case that McDaniel’s connections to the former president, who hand-picked her as chair after his 2016 victory, will prevent her from being completely neutral in an upcoming presidential primary, a criticism McDaniel has publicly rejected."

RELATED: RNC's Ronna McDaniel struggling to keep her job

Asked to explain the battle, Jonathan Barnett, a committee member from Arkansas, stated, "You’ve got anti-Trump people that are for Ronna, and you’ve got anti-Trump people for Harmeet. “It’s just the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen."

"Dhillon, whose law firm served as Trump’s counsel for his dealings with the House Jan. 6 Committee, has been hoping to flip what her team believes are 'soft' McDaniel votes. To do so, they have reached out recently to top Republican leaders not named Trump, some of whom are eyeing their own bids for the White House in 2024," the Politico report states before adding, "The RNC chair election, along with the election of other key committee posts, is done by secret ballot. And despite the public jockeying, it is unclear exactly how many votes Dhillon or McDaniel have banked. A majority of the 168 members is required to win, and McDaniel supporters say she is safely in the lead."

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