Although Ronna Romney McDaniel is Sen. Mitt Romney’s niece and a fellow Republican, Romney has been much more nuanced in his conservatism. Romney hasn’t been shy about calling out the extremes of the MAGA movement and pushing back against former President Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. The 49-year-old McDaniel, on the other hand, has been a Trump loyalist and an in-your-face culture warrior.
Regardless, some people in the Republican Party believe that she isn’t enough of a fighter. And according to Politico reporters Natalie Allison and Meridith McGraw, McDaniel’s critics are being increasingly vocal about their desire to oust her as chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC).
“Ronna McDaniel’s path to another two-year term leading the Republican National Committee faces a major obstacle: Some of the loudest voices in the conservative movement are calling for her to go,” Allison and McGraw explain in an article published by Politico on December 19. “As she seeks a rare fourth term as RNC chair, McDaniel is facing fierce criticism from a horde of right-wing media figures who reach millions of GOP faithful. Now, McDaniel has to hold down her support on the committee for five weeks as a grassroots army rages against her.”
The Politico reporters continue, “Since the midterms, RNC members say their inboxes have been clogged with hundreds of e-mails each week — and the uproar has now turned to the RNC’s spending on events, private travel, luxury accommodations and other expenses in an election cycle that didn’t deliver strong GOP wins. McDaniel’s top opponent is Harmeet Dhillon, an RNC committeewoman from California and election law attorney who has represented Donald Trump.”
The movement to oust McDaniel as RNC chair has grown increasingly “contentious,” according to Allison and McGraw. And one of her most vocal critics is Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.
At a Turning Point USA gathering in Phoenix on Saturday night, December 17, Carlson said of McDaniel, “You’re flying on private planes with the money that, like, sweet, terrified Republican voters have sent to you from the middle of the country. And you’re losing elections. No. If you win elections, well, we can talk about it. If you’re losing, get out. We cannot reward incompetence.”
On January 27, 2023, the RNC will be holding its election for leader. According to Allison and Meridith McGraw, letters of support for McDaniel “number as many as 107 of the RNC’s 168 voting members.” But Dhillon is hoping to pull some of those 107 over to her side.
Roger Villere, an RNC committeeman who is backing Dhillon, told Politico, “She was elected three times without opposition, and we’ve lost all three times, all three cycles. You could say she’s spending that money to help us win, but we’ve been losing.”
The Politico reporters note that Fox News’ Laura Ingraham is among the media figures who has been turning up the “right-wing heat” on McDaniel. Ingraham has called for a “changing of the guard” at the RNC.
“A host of other conservative media figures, some of whom are longtime McDaniel critics, have also joined forces in recent days to bash her leadership or to promote Dhillon,” Allison and Meridith observe. “They include Charlie Kirk, Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, Megyn Kelly, Dan Bongino, Lou Dobbs, Kurt Schlichter and Erick Erickson. McDaniel has received on-air support from commentators such as Hugh Hewitt and Kellyanne Conway.”
