The Republican National Committee on Friday reelected Michael Whatley as chair, continuing the tenure of President-elect Donald Trump’s second hand-picked leader for the GOP.
Just a year ago, the RNC, still under the leadership of Ronna McDaniel, was resisting conservative activists’ calls to name a new chair and to embrace the influence of grassroots MAGA-aligned groups like Turning Point USA.
As the committee met in Las Vegas last January for its annual winter meeting, McDaniel and other committee officials balked at a rival meeting being held at an adjacent casino — a gathering organized by Turning Point and its founder, Charlie Kirk, where the group criticized the RNC’s voter outreach strategies. Audible cries to fire McDaniel erupted from the audience of county party chairs and other grassroots leaders at the Turning Point meeting. Whatley was among the RNC members who made an appearance at the unofficial gathering, as murmurs were underway that Trump’s advisers were privately considering him for McDaniel’s job.
Within days, Trump publicly said the four-term chair should step down from her post. Weeks later, Whatley was formally installed, two days after Trump’s last remaining GOP rival, Nikki Haley, relented and ended her campaign for president.
In the time since, Trump clinched the Republican nomination and placed his top campaign officials in key RNC roles. Trump effectively merged the committee with his own presidential campaign, widened his coalition with working class and minority voters and won the presidential race.
His daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, sat on stage at the RNC’s winter meeting Friday morning, a sign of the ways he has remade the committee to be fully loyal to his brand of Republican politics. The committee’s few remaining Trump-skeptical members have continued to quietly exit its ranks.
McDaniel, meanwhile, has lost relevance in the Republican Party, viewed by Trump allies as insufficiently MAGA, as prominent Trump-aligned activists like Kirk are among the Republican figures who have enjoyed increased access to Trump in the weeks approaching his inauguration.
In a speech after his uncontested reelection, Whatley railed against an “extreme” Democratic Party and pledged to carry out Trump’s MAGA agenda.
“I promised that the RNC would not be all things to all people,” Whatley said, explaining that he and Lara Trump vowed three things: to “host a world-class convention, get out the vote, and protect the ballot.”
With Trump and House and Senate Republicans having come out victorious in November, Whatley cautioned that the committee must now focus on ensuring they hold majorities in 2026, warning that “the radical left will waste no time putting the brakes on President Trump’s agenda.”
“It’s a great day to be an American, and the only thing better is to be a MAGA Republican American,” said Derek Babcock, the chair of the Louisiana Republican Party, as he prepared to lead the committee in the pledge of allegiance Friday morning. RNC members gathered at the Omni Shoreham hotel in D.C. ahead of the weekend’s Trump inauguration festivities.
Two years ago, when the RNC had gathered for its winter meeting at the Waldorf Astoria in Dana Point, California — amid accusations from some on the committee that McDaniel had squandered party finances on luxury accommodations and events, and was not sufficiently helping Republicans win elections — McDaniel survived a challenge from California committeemember Harmeet Dhillon.
Dhillon, a prominent conservative attorney based in San Francisco, was defeated in the contentious chair race in January 2023. But Dhillon, who was at the gathering Friday, is now set to move into a key role in Trump’s new administration, with Trump tapping her to lead the Department of Justice’s civil rights division.
The committee also elected KC Crosbie, the national committeemember from Kentucky, as co-chair. She replaces Lara Trump, who decided not to continue in her role with the RNC. Crosbie, who was endorsed for the role by Trump, in her speech called him “the greatest leader of my lifetime.”