Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel won her bid Friday to lead the GOP for two more years, prevailing in an election that highlighted fierce internal divisions that threaten to plague the party into the next presidential season.
McDaniel, whom Donald Trump tapped as RNC chair in 2016, won the the secret ballot vote 111 to 51. The high-profile election played out inside a luxury resort on the Southern California coast as the RNC's 168 voting members – activists and elected officials from all 50 states – gathered for the committee's annual winter meeting.
With the victory, McDaniel becomes the longest-serving RNC chair since the Civil War. Yet friends and foes alike agree that she will not be leading the RNC from a position of strength.
While Trump privately backed McDaniel, powerful forces from within his "Make America Great Again" movement lined up behind McDaniel's chief rival, Trump attorney Harmeet Dhillon.
People are also reading…
Dhillon waged an aggressive challenge against McDaniel that featured allegations of chronic misspending, mismanagement and even religious bigotry against Dhillon's Sikh faith — all claims that McDaniel denied. Above all, the case against McDaniel centered on deep dissatisfaction with the direction of the party after continuous election losses since Trump tapped her to lead the committee following his upset 2016 victory.
Ahead of the vote, Dhillon cited the Republican base's overwhelming desire for change and threatened political retribution for RNC members who dared support McDaniel's reelection.
Read the full story: