As Vespa reported late last week, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel won reelection at the RNC's winter meeting, fending off challengers Harmeet Dhillon and Mike Lindell. Now, Dhillon is rolling up her sleeves again with her eye on helping Republicans beat Democrats at their own games while calling for unity within the RNC and fighting for changes in the party's handling of early voting.
"We have a lot of work to do to make sure that we're in fighting shape for 2024," Dhillon told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News Channel's "Sunday Morning Futures," adding she "feels good" about working together with McDaniel and the RNC. Dhillon acknowledged that it's up to McDaniel what role she'll play but said she is "certainly open to whatever's necessary."
"The bigger picture here is that Democrats are absolutely devastating our country, they're driving us into the ground, and we cannot afford for Republicans to not be united right now," Dhillon continued. "I look forward to taking a call and working together with [McDaniel]."
Part of that work, Dhillon hopes, will center on one of her key campaign goals: early voting, an area she says Republicans have "been behind the eight ball with respect to Democrats."
"Over the last decade, Democrats have downgraded the integrity of our elections and made it much easier for people to vote with ballots that are sent out like shopping mailers," Dhillon explained."On our side, what we have failed to do is really look at the fact that we're losing with that early voting — be it mail voting, absentee voting, or voting early in person — and my top campaign plank was that, in order for us to win, we must simply mechanically beat the Democrats at hustling the ballots for our voters into the ballot boxes as early as possible."
Dhillon noted that working to take advantage of existing early voting laws "doesn't mean you ignore election integrity," but means the RNC has "to do both things and do them very well."
Thank you @MariaBartiromo for having me on this morning. After the leadership election, we must unite.
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) January 29, 2023
I am committed to working with @GOPChairwoman and the RNC to win in 2024 and beyond.
We must focus on the mechanics of all forms of early voting. Americans are counting on us! pic.twitter.com/3wKm86maOr
Dhillon has called for a new department within the RNC for election operations to oversee such early voting efforts in places law allows for it. For decades, the RNC was prohibited from undertaking such efforts for decades under a consent decree, Dhillon reminded, but that order expired four years ago. "So now, we really need to ramp up and make sure that as we start voting in 2024, that we are able to beat the Democrats at getting our ballots in early."
If Republicans are able to succeed at the mechanics of early voting, Dhillon added, "all these other excuses about candidate quality, and who endorsed whom, and ticket splitting, and whatever excuse you have, it just doesn't matter when you look at how Democrats were able to elect John Fetterman, Joe Biden — the biggest liar in DC — and Katie Hobbs. I know we can do it," Dhillon said. "We have to commit resources and energy and as a policy pull together to do that."