Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel plans to step down from her post after the South Carolina primary on February 24, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
But in a message to National Review, RNC spokesman Keith Schipper threw cold water on the Times‘s reporting.
“Nothing has changed,” he said. “This will be decided after South Carolina.”
Moreover, two RNC members told NR that the committee’s 168 members had not been notified about McDaniel’s reported plans to leave when the Times reported the story.
Former president Donald Trump is likely to support Michael Whatley, current chairman of the North Carolina GOP, as a potential replacement in the RNC’s election to determine McDaniel’s successor, the report says.
McDaniel’s hold on the RNC has become tenuous over the past several months, and the Times reported that she has thought about leaving her post for some time. Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy took what perhaps was the most pronounced public jab at McDaniel during the November Republican presidential debate, calling the GOP a “party of losers” and urging McDaniel to resign.
The schism between McDaniel and many members of the party she oversees came to a head Monday, when Trump said the chairwoman “understands” that she should step down during a sit-down interview with Newsmax. RNC chief of staff Mike Reed announced Tuesday afternoon that he would leave at the end of the month.
The news of McDaniel’s potential resignation comes on the heels of an aborted RNC resolution meant to declare Trump the party’s “presumptive” presidential nominee before he had captured a majority of delegates in the primaries. National Review reported that many committee members understood the resolution — introduced by Trump ally David Bossie — to be an attempt to convince McDaniel to call on Nikki Haley, Trump’s only remaining competitor in the primaries — to drop out of the race.
After a fracas surrounding the resolution, Trump urged the RNC not to move forward with the proposal in a post on Truth Social. Bossie withdrew the resolution soon after Trump commented on the push.