Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel was brutally scorched in a column for The New Republic, highlighting the failures of her party under her leadership.
This comes after she was implicated in the newly discovered pressure campaign against officials in Michigan to block the certification of voting results, a revelation some legal experts have suggested could lead to criminal bribery charges against her — and as the RNC reports catastrophic fundraising numbers even as it spends hundreds of thousands on limousine transport.
"As the head of the RNC for the past six years, McDaniel has overseen one electoral loss after another, and now she’s also losing the fundraising game," wrote Edith Olmsted. "She is failing miserably at the core responsibilities of a party chair—and yet, her job seems as secure as ever."
McDaniel, Olmsted noted, faced a bitter leadership challenge at the beginning of the year, with California GOP officer Harmeet Dhillon running a MAGA-themed candidacy to take over the RNC that led to furious faction-fighting.
"Nonetheless, McDaniel won her fourth consecutive term by a 111–51 margin, making her the longest-serving chair in over a century. The result signaled that the party was content to keep doing the same thing they’d been doing since 2018: losing," wrote Olmsted. "And lose they did. In November, Republicans suffered a series of bruising losses, as voters came out in droves to protect abortion access. In Ohio, a proposal to enshrine abortion access in the state’s constitution passed by an overwhelming margin. In Virginia, the Democrats campaigned on abortion rights and won full control of the legislature. In conservative Kentucky, Democratic Governor Andy Beshear was reelected to his second term after painting his opponent as too extreme on abortion."
All of this prompted Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to name check her on the debate stage, accusing her of turning the GOP in to a "party of losers" — which, said Olmsted, is an apt complaint.
"No matter your political affiliation, this is obvious political malpractice and professional incompetence," concluded Olmsted. "That’s nothing but good news for the Democrats, whose own national party chair is nowhere near as famous as McDaniel because he’s actually good at his job. In 2023, the GOP couldn’t organize a lemonade stand. So keep up the awful work in 2024, Ronna!"
