GOP voters are calling for change. A new poll indicates that a significant majority of GOP voters prefer that Ronna McDaniel not be re-elected as chair of the Republican National Committee. The poll, from the Convention of States Action and The Trafalgar Group, showed that only 5.6 percent of Republican voters prefer McDaniel be re-elected to her fourth two-year term as RNC chair. Yet, 73.5 percent of Republican voters prefer the party elect someone new to chair the RNC (another 20.9 percent said that they were unsure).
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McDaniel is a Donald Trump acolyte, so, the poll is another “damning indication that Republicans are willing to move on from Trump and the former president’s attempts to mold the GOP in his image.”
Donald Trump’s Ally: The GOP under McDaniel
The GOP has not been particularly successful since Trump picked McDaniel as RNC chair in 2017. During McDaniel’s three two-year terms, the GOP lost the House in 2018, lost the White House in 2020, and lost the Senate in 2022. Basically, McDaniel has a .000 batting average.
2022 was especially abysmal for the GOP. Historically, the out-of-power party (in 2022, the Republicans) fared well during the midterms. 2022 was supposed to be the year Republicans took back the Senate and the House, putting Biden in a position where guiding his preferred legislation through Congress was functionally difficult.
But the GOP faltered, and their predicted “red wave” never materialized.
Democrats retained the Senate. Republicans eked out a razor-thin majority in the House. Trump’s handpicked candidates were trounced in battleground states, losing all but one contest. 2022 was a tough year for Trump and a tough year for McDaniel and a tough year for Trump’s hand-picked lackeys, i.e., McDaniel.
Not surprisingly, the poll showed that 62.7 percent of Republican voters felt that the Republican Party was “ineffective” in getting GOP candidates elected. No argument there. The GOP backed several low-quality candidates in high-profile, high-consequence races. Herschel Walker, for example, a football player who Dave Chapelle called “observably stupid” bumbled his way through the Georgia election, from gaffe to scandal to gaffe. Mehmet Oz, a TV doctor, ran in Pennsylvania against a blue-collar local in a hoodie – and lost.
“Republican voters are furious about the failure of their party to deliver results in 2022 – especially given the disastrous mismanagement of the country by the Biden Administration and their allies in Congress,” Mark Meckler, president of the Convention of States Action, said. “Voters believe the only way to hold the GOP accountable for its failures is to make way for new leadership.” (Note: it sounds like the Convention of States Action has a dog in the poll they conducted).
The RNC Election
McDaniel will face challenges for the RNC chair from Trump attorney Harmeet Dhillon and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. McDaniel will surely have lost support from within the GOP after the GOP’s abysmal midterm performance. In order to win reelection, McDaniel needs only to earn a majority backing from the 168 RNC committee members. The RNC will hold its vote later this month, on January 27th, in Dana Point, California.
Emma Vaughn, spokesperson for McDaniel’s re-election campaign, told Newsweek that “just like the RNC, Chairwoman McDaniel’s decision to run for re-election was member driven. Members of the 168 rallied around the Chairwoman because of her unprecedented investments in the grassroots, election integrity, and minority communities and for taking on Big Tech and the biased Commission on Presidential Debates.”
Trump has not yet commented on the poll’s findings.
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Harrison Kass is the Senior Editor at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison lives in Oregon and listens to Dokken.
