The RNC's Ronna McDaniel Quandary

RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel

It is sometimes hard to tell how successful a national party chair is or isn't at their jobs.  Sometimes it's easy, like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who ran a truly awful operation at the DNC where it became clear that DNC staffers had favored Hillary Clinton.  This did not win Clinton the nomination, for the record, but it was a terrible look for DWS and why she had to resign months before a presidential election that her party lost despite the entire country assuming she wouldn't...a loss that will be in Wasserman Schultz's obituary, and in part (correctly) blamed on her.  Conversely, Howard Dean's tenure at the DNC was an absolute triumph-his 50-State Strategy not only won Democrats control of the House, Senate, & White House for the first time in 16 years, but also won Barack Obama victories in historically-red Virginia, North Carolina, & Indiana, and won them House/Senate seats in places George W. Bush had won landslide victories in 2004 like Alaska, Idaho, & rural Colorado.

But most of the time, it's hard to pinpoint the problems of the Chair of the party because they are, generally, a figurehead whose actions are dictated by more powerful players.  Terry McAuliffe, for example, was a famously good fundraiser and was the first DNC Chair to lift his party out-of-debt (it's hard to imagine today when Democrats are so good at small-dollar donations, but there was a time when Democratic fundraising was a beltway punchline-McAuliffe changed that).  McAuliffe, though, oversaw the 2002 and 2004 elections, both of which were notoriously bad for the Democrats.  McAuliffe, for his many faults (despite being a generally well-regarded governor, he has caused more headaches than most for the party), was a good chair that if you look at the top-level numbers (i.e. actual election results) he failed miserably.

In a lot of ways, Ronna McDaniel's tenure at the RNC has mirrored McAuliffe's.  Like McAuliffe, McDaniel is a prodigious fundraiser, pretty much unparalleled in recent memory.  In 2018 & 2020 (less so 2022) she was a cash machine, bringing in gargantuan sums of money that frequently dwarfed those of her DNC counterparts.  McDaniel, though, has to run a party that is dominated (even headed into 2023) by Donald Trump's MAGA philosophy.  She oversaw not just Trump's loss in 2020, but also massive losses for the party in 2018 (when they lost the House), 2021 (when they lost the Senate), and 2022 (when they couldn't win back the Senate, had net losses for governor, and nearly lost the House again).  McDaniel is a unique politician in that she's good at the job she's primarily tasked to do (raise money & turn out the vote), but her tenure has been an abject failure to the point where you kind of have to throw her out (three consecutive losses for your enterprise means that no matter how "good" you are at your job, you need to step aside if you're the leader).

But here's where the problem lies-McDaniel is running against two MAGA-fied opponents, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell (less famous for his comfortable pillows at this point than for his election conspiracy theories) and Harmeet Dhillon, an election conspiracy theorist who is backed by a number of pro-Trump groups and MAGA figures like Tucker Carlson & Charlie Kirk.

This is a repeat of what we've seen for a lot of Republican races in recent years.  McDaniel is not a good option for the GOP...but she's probably the best option in a weak field.  We saw that in 2022, when candidates like Adam Laxalt were ballyhooed as great options for the Republicans because they looked good by comparison to jokes such as Mehmet Oz & Blake Masters...but all of them lost because the reality was that Laxalt was a guy who lost his last election and was also associated with election conspiracy theories.  McDaniel is a good fundraiser, and given the circumstances is the best Republican option headed into a 2024 election where the Republicans need to find a way to get back moderate voters & find ways around hard-line stances on immigration & abortion or risk a repeat of the past three cycles.  But it's telling to the GOP that she's the best option that they could bring forth headed into a pivotal presidential election.

I ultimately think that McDaniel will win.  The way the party chair is chosen is by insiders, who unlike the MAGA crowds that choose people like Oz & Masters as their standard-bearers, these are figures who will think about the candidate quality, and in particular McDaniel's fundraising prowess (which neither Lindell or Dhillon will be able to duplicate), and reelect her.  But it says something pretty damning about the party's chances going into 2024 to win back the White House that McDaniel is their best option...and even she's being forced to run a full-court press to win the job against gadflies.