Just a day before Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel won re-election, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla) called for new leadership, saying that there needs to be new blood within the RNC.
“We’ve had 3 substandard election cycles in a row, ‘18, ‘20, and ‘22, and I would say of all of those ‘22 was probably the worst,” DeSantis said during an interview with Charlie Kirk. “Given, the political environment of a very unpopular President Biden, huge majorities of the people think the country’s going in the wrong direction.”
DeSantis praised California attorney and former Trump campaign advisor Harmeet Dhillon’s comments about getting the RNC out of Washington, D.C.
“I like what Harmeet Dhillon has said about getting the RNC out of D.C. Why would you want to have your headquarters in the most Democrat city in America? It’s more Democrat than San Francisco is,” the Florida governor said, referring to a letter Dhillon sent to RNC members about considering regional offices while still keeping the headquarters in D.C.
The vote ended a feud within the Republican Party as they decided on the fate of their leadership.
On Friday, McDaniel won the support of 111 committee members who cast their ballots in a secret ballot vote for chair, defeating Dhillon who won the support of just 51 committee members.
However, several Republicans along with DeSantis expressed their disappointment with the results.
Kirk told Fox News Digital that he cannot, in good faith, keep giving money to the RNC.
“It shows that a majority of the members of the RNC have contempt for the people that put them there," Kirk said, adding "I cannot in good faith tell our audience… to keep giving money to the RNC. In fact, I tell them not to.”
Following her defeat, Dhillon said that the committee “will be better for the tough conversations that were desperately needed about how to reform the RNC to win elections and earn the trust of our voters, activists, and donors.”