Despite a series of election cycles that involved losing the House, the Senate, the White House, and then posting the smallest opposition party gain in recent history during the midterms, members of the Republican National Committee opted Friday to stick with what they know.
The GOP as it stands is a party that, below the surface, lacks coherence, let alone any sort of vision for what comes next.
The RNC reappointed Ronna McDaniel to a fourth term, making her likely to become the longest serving GOP chair since the 19th century. It was a blowout victory against her chief opponent, Harmeet Dhillon, a committee member from California, with the secret ballot coming in at 111-51. (MyPillow guy Mike Lindell got only four votes despite my fellow columnist Dean Obeidallah’s ringing [and only half-joking] endorsement; former Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., got one — but wasn’t even running.)
But the lopsided final vote masks a deeper tension: The GOP as it stands is a party that, below the surface, lacks coherence, let alone any sort of vision for what comes next. Even the unifying force that former President Donald Trump once offered is weakening as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ draw grows stronger. That’s setting Republicans up for a titanic clash in the primaries with little guarantee of electoral success to follow. McDaniel clearly has her work cut out for her — but what that work is exactly is harder to determine.
The RNC itself doesn’t offer many clues as to what the road ahead looks like for McDaniel. After the disappointing midterms led to Republicans only barely recapturing the House, she launched a “review” of why the party didn’t achieve its predicted “red wave.” But as I wrote last month, the RNC has a terrible track record of appealing to people outside its reddest districts.
To that point, the set of resolutions the RNC’s 165 members approved Friday range from what’s become boilerplate unhinged language on immigration to a banal…
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