Just six percent of Republicans want Ronna Romney McDaniel to remain as chairwoman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), according to new polling data.
The poll, which was carried out by the Convention of States Action in partnership with The Trafalgar Group, surveyed over 1,000 GOP and GOP primary voters from December 17th through December 21st as McDaniel's position faces intense scrutiny following a disappointing performance in the midterm elections.
The survey found that an overwhelming 73.5 percent of Republican voters believe the party should elect a new chairperson, while six percent think McDaniel should remain in situ. Around 20 percent said they did not know or had not made up their mind.
In addition, around 68 percent of respondents said the RNC was ineffective in getting Republicans elected in 2022, compared to 28 percent who believe the opposite.
“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. Voters believe the only way to hold the GOP accountable for its failures is to make way for new leadership. Grassroots activists have known for a long time that GOP leadership in Congress and at the RNC aren’t focused on fighting for conservative principles, or even winning a majority, but rather keeping themselves in power and funding the permanent political consultant class,” said Mark Meckler, President of the Convention of States.
"Ultimately, we need to stop playing Washington’s game by Washington’s rules," Meckler continued. "If Americans want to fix our broken government, we need to force change in the leadership of organizations who failed to deliver results, support grassroots organizations doing real work on the ground, and reign in the power of DC with an Article V Convention of States.”
The results present another headache for McDaniel, who was chosen by Donald Trump in 2016 after she masterminded his campaign's victory in the state of Michigan. However, many Republicans have grown frustrated with her leadership after three election cycles in which they failed to take control of Congress, while McDaniel had also previously promised to step down at the end of her third term.
McDaniel's primary challenger is Harmeet Dhillon, an experienced civil liberties attorney and former vice-chair of the California Republican Party who has represented conservatives in many high-profile cases. Dhillon has pledged to change the party's political messaging and make significant reforms to its fundraising operations.
"I think that we really need to radically re-shape our leadership in order to win. And we can’t keep running elections like we did in the ’90s and the 2000s and we really have to modernize to compete with the Democrats dollar-for-dollar in the ways they fundraise, the way they deliver their ballots to the ballot boxes," Dhillon said in an interview with Tucker Carlson last month.
"Our messaging needs to be fresh and positive and not just reactive to news cycles and what the Democrats are doing. And I think that the party needs to realize that the party has become a populist party," she continued. "The base of the party demands populist messages that speak to them and not Chamber of Commerce messages, not neocon messages, not warmonger messages and I’m afraid that the base of our party is not getting what it needs from our leadership."
