Republican Party of Arizona Calls for RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel to Resign

Republican Party of Arizona Calls for RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel to Resign
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel speaks during a press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington on Nov. 9, 2020. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Katabella Roberts
12/9/2022
Updated:
12/9/2022
0:00

The Republican party of Arizona (RPAZ) has called on the chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), Ronna McDaniel, to resign shortly after GOP lawmakers failed to win control of the Senate.

In a press release on Thursday, the party pointed to the RNC leader’s alleged failure to support the election of Republicans across the country, among other issues, as reasoning for her to step down.

“Tonight, the Executive Committee of the RPAZ unanimously passed a resolution to support fresh and bold leadership as RNC Chair,” the RPAZ said. “We challenge every state committee to meet and tell their RNC Members how they expect them to vote in January at the RNC reorganizational meeting.”

The meeting is set to take place next month in southern California and will see the 168-strong RNC members vote on the next chair.

The call for McDaniel to step down comes shortly after GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker’s narrow defeat on Tuesday night to Democratic candidate Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) in the high-profile Georgia election race, which entered a runoff.

That defeat gave Democrats a 51-seat majority in the Senate, meaning Democrats now hold a majority and won’t have to rely on Vice President Kamala Harris to serve as a tiebreaker for key legislative issues in the previously evenly divided chamber.

In Thursday’s announcement, the RPAZ noted that it is “the responsibility of Republican leadership in the RNC to hold these elected officials accountable to winning and supporting all our Republican candidates in General elections by all means possible.”

‘New and Bold Leadership’ Needed

RPAZ, therefore, is calling on members of the RNC to elect “new and bold leadership” in the January 2023 meeting in an effort to “recast a courageous vision to contrast with the disastrous failing policies implemented by the Biden Administration.”

McDaniel, who has been chair of the RNC since 2017, has said she plans to run for another term as RNC chair, despite a disappointing midterm election for Republicans.

She currently has endorsements from 101 RNC members, meaning she has enough votes to secure a fourth term.

However, the current RNC chair will also be fending off challenges from Harmeet Dhillon, a legal adviser to the Trump 2020 presidential campaign, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.

Harmeet Dhillon at the 2020 CPAC Convention in National Harbor, Md.. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
Harmeet Dhillon at the 2020 CPAC Convention in National Harbor, Md.. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
Dhillon announced this week that she will make a bid for RNC chair, stating on Fox News that she was doing so because “Republicans are tired of losing, and I think that we really need to radically reshape our leadership in order to win. And we can’t keep running elections like we did in the 90s and the 2000s.”

Her announcement came shortly after McDaniel named her as co-chair of a committee reviewing the party’s performance in the mid-term elections and planning for the 2024 election.

Elsewhere, Lindell told The Epoch Times that McDaniel, whom he refers to as “‘McFail” should step down from the role or risk “leaving the country to be run by the uni-party and the Democrats.”

The Epoch Times has contacted McDaniel for comment.