By most accounts, Ronna McDaniel is in a solid position to win her fourth term as chair of the Republican National Committee. But the race to head the RNC is by no means a lock—and it’s shaping up to be one of the dirtier, more acrimonious fights among a political party known for dirty and acrimonious fights.
In less than two weeks, the race to lead the RNC—the first contested competition for the position since 2011—has devolved into private bedlam, a competition of personal animus involving anonymous email blasts, direct accusations of self-dealing and buying votes, an indirect electoral blame game, and RNC member doxxing.
The attacks on both McDaniel and her challenger, former Trump lawyer Harmeet Dhillon, have rankled longtime members and forged strange alliances between the MAGA faithful and more traditional Republicans on both sides of the contest.
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Former President Donald Trump has been conspicuously absent from the race, even with plenty of time on his hands during his sleepy presidential bid. But despite some vocal critiques from a few prominent Republicans, sources within the RNC say McDaniel has the votes heading into the committee’s next meeting in late January. On Monday morning, McDaniel supporters circulated an endorsement letter with more than half of current RNC members signed on—more than the majority she needs for re-election.
However, Dhillon is keeping McDaniel on her toes, and RNC members told The Daily Beast that some of McDaniel’s supporters aren’t as decided as they’re letting on.
Dhillon raised her profile during the early stages of the pandemic with lawsuits against stay-at-home orders, once saying “masks don’t work,” She also briefly joined the Trump legal team when he was facing a subpoena from the House Select Committee on Jan. 6. Should Trump throw his weight behind Dhillon, the race could get interesting quickly.
For now, the leadership contest is just the latest manifestation of a political party at a crossroads. But instead of a clean MAGA vs. Establishment split, the race for RNC chair has turned into a Rorschach test of the party’s disappointing midterm results.
“Three losing seasons and it’s time to look for a new coach,” Oscar Brock, an RNC National committee chairman from Tennessee, told The Daily Beast. “What we’re looking for is not someone who is bragging about the number of impressions on social media or the number of door knocks or the number of phone calls made, we’re looking for somebody that actually wins elections.”
“The problem you’re seeing is a divided party,” another RNC member told The Daily Beast, requesting anonymity to discuss internal conversations and efforts to whip the votes for McDaniel.
“You always run an election like you’re behind,” they said. “I don’t think she’s behind, but she’s running like she is.”
Another RNC member described Dhillon’s base of support as “low-information bitchers” who are prone to believing conspiracy theories.
“The more people are into flexing rhetorical muscles, the more they’re into Harmeet,” the RNC member told The Daily Beast, requesting anonymity because of their employer. “And then there are those of us who are like, ‘How do we win elections?’”
“Some people are looking for Braveheart,” this RNC member continued, “where they want to charge the ramparts and almost want to lose, but for honor.”
Most of the bad blood in the race has materialized over email—specifically, on the RNC’s listserv.
An anonymous ProtonMail account going by “rncnews” has lambasted Dhillon over an alleged pattern of leaking, while also accusing Dhillon of enriching her law firm with $893,641 in direct payments over the midterms cycle. The anonymous account detailed one of the main gripes among Dhillon critics: her more than $1.3 million in legal fees as a vendor for the RNC during the 2022 cycle.
"I have pledged to members that if elected, I would be neutral in the presidential as the RNC would be neutral in this race by our bylaws," Dhillon said when reached for comment.
“I am very disappointed in the direction of Harmeet Dhillon's campaign for RNC Chair,” RNC North Carolina committeewoman Kyshia Brassington wrote in an email to fellow members, obtained by The Daily Beast. “Going on national TV, Twitter and print press stating and insinuating that members receive ‘kick backs,’ perks, assignments, contracts or on the opposite side are marginalized if they don't support Chairman McDaniel are false.”
In a Dec. 8 email obtained by The Daily Beast, Jeff Kent, a Washington state national committeeman, vigorously defended McDaniel against a specific line of attack from Dhillon—that the RNC chairwoman was buying votes.
“You know, the building and the allies there are handing out perks,” Dhillon claimed on O’Connor Tonight. “They’re offering to pay legal bills they weren’t willing to pay two weeks ago. They’re offering cash transfers to the state. They’re offering contracts. They’re offering cozy committee assignments. I can’t compete with that.”
Kent refuted those claims, writing that promises of legal bills, contracts, or committee assignments were all false. “We all know Ronna, and we know this is simply not who she is or how she operates,” he said.
“There are false accusations being peddled on national TV that the RNC members who are backing Ronna McDaniel’s re-election are doing so because they are being threatened or bribed,” Kent responded via email, according to internal communications obtained by The Daily Beast.
“This is a particularly ironic charge coming from a member of the Executive Committee who had received more in legal bills and contracts than any other RNC member,” he continued, referring to Dhillon.
The same “rncnews” ProtonMail account came back swinging on Dec. 9, once again accusing Dhillon of leaking to the press.
“Once a leaker, always a leaker,” the detailed rant against Dhillon began. “Harmeet Dhillon just can’t help herself. After leaking her candidacy announcement to Politico’s Alex Isenstadt, she turned to Meredith McGraw, another MSM reporter at Politico, to release internal email discussions between RNC members. That story dropped this morning.”
An RNC representative stepped in on the same day to “kindly remind members of the 168 that the contact list with our emails, phone numbers, and addresses is not for public consumption. It is not intended to be bought or sold, used for personal gain. It should NOT be any public facing websites or [listservs]. Please be mindful that you do not share or distribute any information included in the contact list without the person’s consent.”
In another Dec. 9 email, McDaniel told members that she condemned the emails from the mysterious account. “I want to be clear that this is not coming from me or anyone on my team,” she wrote.
Corners of the RNC also aren’t sympathetic to Dhillon in the email saga.
“We’re getting these emails about doxxing—she sent out every RNC member’s emails numerous times across the country,” an RNC member said. “We’re getting emails from people who don’t think we should vote for Ronna, but the thing is, none of these people have a vote.”
But the emails didn’t stop there.
On Monday, Nebraska state chairman Eric Underwood moved to “rescind” his endorsement of McDaniel—in what fellow RNC members viewed as a blow to McDaniel’s re-election efforts.
“At this time, I rescind my endorsement of Chairwoman McDaniel & I will not make any further public endorsement for any leadership level at the RNC,” he wrote in an email obtained by The Daily Beast—which was sent to all 168 RNC members. “I will not let my name be used as a political pawn in the campaign for RNC chair,” he added. (Underwood couldn’t be reached by The Daily Beast for comment.)
To that fellow Nebraska RNC member, J.L. Spray said anger was neither a strategy nor a tactic, “but it can make a chairman nervous.”
“Those of us who are in a position to make an informed decision ought to exercise that decision. This election is an inside look back at ourselves not a public media affair as some have tried to make it,” he wrote, going on to praise McDaniel’s fundraising and the RNC’s field operations.
Much of the consternation with McDaniel centers around Republicans losing. The blame game—not just for 2022, but also 2020 and 2018—is inextricably embedded in the deliberations over whether to re-elect McDaniel, a source close to the RNC told The Daily Beast.
“People who are after Ronna’s scalp know better, but they’re grifting off the activist base who—rightfully so—wants to hold someone accountable for three consecutive losses,” the Republican said, requesting anonymity because of their outside work.
“People want a scalp, and we’re seeing that Mitch McConnell survived and Kevin McCarthy will probably survive at the last minute,” the source close to the RNC added. “Trump isn’t being held accountable for now. So people want Ronna to be that scalp.”
There are also less ideologically driven committee members like Bill Palatucci of New Jersey, who told The Daily Beast he likes McDaniel personally, but plans on supporting Dhillon because he’s “tired of losing.”
“I would consider much of Ronna’s support as soft, people who like her or like Trump have said to me privately that—particularly after the terrible results in Georgia—that we need to think about doing something different, so that’s the basis upon which I say a chunk of her support is soft,” Palatucci said, while also acknowledging McDaniel currently has the votes and is “in the driver’s seat here.”
Louisiana national committeeman Roger Villere, supporting Dhillon, told The Daily Beast that McDaniel initially promised a group of members that her third term would be her last.
“She stood up at the meeting, on the stage, and said she was not going to run for another term,” Villere said of a Jan. 7 meeting at the high-end Ritz-Carlton hotel on Amelia Island. “I was sitting right there in the audience in front of her.” Likewise, Oregon national committeeman Solomon Yue, who also supports Dhillon, and another RNC memeber said they’d also heard McDaniel make that pledge.
“I think she should honor her promise to us,” Yue added.
The RNC didn’t dispute the closed-door comments when reached by The Daily Beast, but a spokeswoman suggested McDaniel’s speech wasn’t exactly a pledge.
“The Chairwoman’s intention was only to run again if it was the will of the members, and after hearing overwhelming support for her to run again from a majority of members, she decided to seek re-election,” Emma Vaughn, a spokeswoman for McDaniel, said.
McDaniel and members in her corner have been working the phones to ensure she secures the 85 out of 168 votes necessary to win, with the field largely cleared aside from Dhillon.
One GOP strategist said Trumpworld “weighed” the former president throwing his support behind Dhillon, a semi-regular on Fox News, but many came away sharing the consensus within the RNC that McDaniel has the votes.
“Ronna clearly has it, which is why Lee got out,” the strategist said, referring to outgoing Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, whose gubernatorial campaign coattails secured several surprise wins for the GOP in the House despite his loss at the top of the ticket to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Zeldin recently described McDaniel’s re-election bid as appearing “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.”
A source close to Trump told The Daily Beast that they have “no reason to believe the President’s support of Ronna has changed.” Another Trumpworld source—familiar with the state of the RNC race—believed Trump wouldn't get involved. (A Trump spokesperson didn’t return The Daily Beast’s request for comment.)
While Trump is the person truly looming over the race, there’s a sideshow casting its own shadow: MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who has been running a darkhorse campaign for the chairman seat.
Of all the shifting allegiances and varying assessments of McDaniel’s performance, in conversations with nearly a dozen RNC members with varying perspectives, there was one clear consensus.
“I don’t know anyone who’s taking that seriously,” one of the RNC members said of Lindell.
True to form, Lindell claimed to The Daily Beast that he’s called all 168 members and earned their support. He also said he has not gone to Trump to ask for an endorsement.
In a subsequent email obtained by The Daily Beast—sent out to all 168 members by Lindell on Tuesday morning—the pillow maven mulled the idea of running the RNC like he’s operated his pillow factory.
Putting the email fracas and other jockeying aside, Palatucci said his vote simply comes down to the party’s results. Dhillon had personally assured him “she is not a supporter of the former president at this time, because she would have to be independent if she were to become chair.”
“There’s no perfect candidate,” the New Jersey Republican continued, “so you’re never gonna be completely satisfied, but this is a case where I believe we have to make a change. We can’t have the disastrous cycle we had in 2020 and the disastrous cycle in 2022 without seriously considering a change.”
The election will formally take place in late January in Dana Point, California, and will be for a two-year term.
The biggest factor going in Dhillon’s favor might be her Fox News appearances, where she notably launched her candidacy on Tucker Carlson’s show.
“Everyone has their talents,” the source close to the RNC deliberations said, “and her talent is going on TV.”
