At an “alternate RNC” event in Las Vegas, local Republican leaders described a lack of resources from the national party to prepare for the 2024 elections and questioned the GOP apparatus’s leadership following electoral losses.
Johnson County, Kansas, Republican Chairwoman Maria Holiday told Politico, “My county is going to flip to blue if we can’t get control.”
According to her, there aren’t any “effective strategies coming out of the RNC down to the grassroots, and that’s where the people are going to vote. … We’re on our own.”
Despite such charges, the Republican National Committee has said it held more than 73 trainings in 2023 specifically geared toward party activists at the state and local levels. Those trainings featured more than 2,100 attendees across the country. Such trainings for state and local Republicans are offered on a variety of subjects, including communications, data, digital, and political skills.
A person familiar told the Washington Examiner that Holiday attended the RNC’s Midwest Regional Fly-In and county leader training in Columbus, Ohio, last year.
One attendee at Turning Point Action’s Restoring National Confidence summit Monday asked at the microphone, “Where are the tools? Where are all the little things that the Left is doing but we don’t?”
He further said, “We are at war.”
The event is overlapping with the RNC’s winter meeting, which begins Tuesday.
In a statement Monday, RNC spokeswoman Emma Vaughn said: “Outside noise might be what keyboard warriors and the Democrats are focused on, but Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and the entire Republican National Committee are laser-focused on beating Biden this fall.”
She pointed to various efforts the party has made so far. “The RNC has already staffed up in 15 states, spent millions of dollars to engage in 76 election integrity lawsuits in 22 states, launched Bank Your Vote, our program to get Republicans to commit to voting early, in all 50 states, 6 territories and in 16 languages, and established a permanent Election Integrity department, all while continuing to hold Joe Biden’s feet to the fire,” she said.
Despite the long list of programs and support provided by the RNC, local GOP leaders expressed frustration Monday that things aren’t changing.
Waukesha County Republican Chairman Terry Dittrich, who leads Wisconsin’s largest Republican county party, said: “The fact of the matter is the same executive committee, the same leadership structure, the same strategic plans, the same ‘victory programs’ are all in place with the same people, and yet we have lost 22 out of 25 statewide races.”
Dittrich was describing various Wisconsin elections, which spanned roughly a dozen years, some of which happened before McDaniel’s tenure began.
“If you’re in a business and your business lost 22 of 25 accounts that you were after, would you have the same structure continue? Would you have the same people continuing to lead?” Dittrich asked.
Notably, since many of these election losses, the RNC ushered in new programs such as Bank Your Vote (its early and mail-in voting initiative) and an election integrity committee, which meets regularly.
TP Action founder and CEO Charlie Kirk used even stronger language regarding the RNC’s leadership. “They’re a bunch of losers. They know it. The grassroots knows it. The donors know it,” he said.
He noted election losses in the past several cycles as evidence of this. Kirk additionally said TP Action has reached out to join forces with the RNC, explaining, “I’m not going to put up with another culture of losing.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
While the RNC is not legally allowed to collaborate with TP Action, given its 501(c)4 status, the party does encourage outside efforts to encourage Republican voting, according to a spokesperson.
Kirk and TP Action Chief Operating Officer Tyler Bowyer, also an Arizona committeeman for the RNC, were some of the more vocal opponents of McDaniel in 2023 when she faced a challenge for the RNC chair position from California National Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon. McDaniel kept her role during the election, winning by a vote of 111 committee members to Dhillon’s 51.