Group of GOP donors backing Dhillon for RNC chair

A group of Republican donors is calling for a change in leadership at the Republican National Committee (RNC), throwing their support behind attorney Harmeet Dhillon’s challenge to Chair Ronna McDaniel.

The group of more than two dozen donors threw their support behind Dhillon in a letter to RNC members dated Monday and reported by Fox News. Several of the individuals listed on the letter have donated tens of thousands of dollars to the GOP over the years.

“We cannot continue on our current trajectory as a Republican Party,” the letter states. “We must change, in order to fulfill our promise to Republican voters to win elections.”

The donors warned the party “is on the verge of permanent irrelevance if we fail to come together to correct course.”

McDaniel has led the RNC since 2017 and has overseen elections where the party has lost the House in 2018 and White House and Senate in 2020. She has come under increased scrutiny after what was largely seen as disappointing results in the 2022 midterm elections.

She now faces her toughest leadership challenge yet as Dhillon, an attorney who represented former President Trump during the Jan. 6 select committee’s probe that tried to subpoena him, has launched a campaign to oust her at the top of the party.

Other Republicans have signaled interest in new leadership atop the national party organization.

The Alabama Republican Party said it would not support McDaniel in her bid to lead the RNC again. In December, the Texas Republican Party also said in a unanimous vote that it would support McDaniel being replaced.

And a poll released earlier this month found a large majority of GOP voters backing a leadership change.

McDaniel has fiercely defended her tenure atop the national party organization and has secured the endorsement of a majority of RNC members for another term.

An endorsement letter circulated last month contained the signatures of 107 RNC members backing her to stay on as chairwoman. It is well more than the 84 members she would need to win reelection.

The party will choose its leader at its winter meetings this month.