As Republican officials from across the country gathered in Utah this week for the RNC's winter meeting, their actions made clear that choosing to serve Trump and his political interests remains a focus for the party.
“If President Trump decides he’s running, absolutely the RNC needs to back him, 100%,” said Michele Fiore, an RNC committeewoman who has represented Nevada since 2018. “We can change the bylaws.”
“There’s probably some disagreement there,” said Bruce Hough, a longtime RNC member from Utah who lost to a Trump ally in a race for party co-chair last year. “The RNC has to provide a level playing field for any and all comers for president. That’s our job. That’s what we have to do.”
But a stark divide has emerged between veterans like Hough, who are devoted to the GOP as an institution, and a larger group of Trump-aligned newcomers, who argue they're bringing new energy to the party. Their chief loyalty, however, seems to be to the former president.
“Leading up to 2020, or most of the time Trump was in office, he populated the committee with very loyal Trump folks in a lot of red states," said Bill Palatucci, an RNC committeeman from New Jersey and frequent Trump critic. “And they still enjoy that strong majority.”
The RNC’s continued embrace of Trump more than two years before the 2024 election is a shift from the party’s position in past elections.
“Clearly, there’s a bias that didn’t exist in the past,” said Tim Miller, who previously worked for the Republican National Committee and has since emerged as a fierce Trump critic. “It’s all Trump all the time coming out of there.”
A year ago, just after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel declined to encourage Trump to run again when asked, citing party rules that require neutrality.
This week, however, she backed an effort by Trump loyalists to censure Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. The censure, which passed on a voice vote Friday, says the two “support Democrat efforts to destroy President Trump more than they support winning back a Republican majority in 2022.”
McDaniel’s shift coincides with the RNC's reliance on Trump for fundraising. The party has issued hundreds of fundraising appeals since Trump left office evoking his name. One offered this message to prospective small-dollar donors on Tuesday: “YOU must stand with President Trump and YOUR Party.”
Though the committee’s moves demonstrated a sustained loyalty to the former president, outside the winter meeting the censure was condemned by opponents as divisive and contrary to frequent appeals from leaders to expand the party's tent.
This week's focus on debates that won't take place until 2024 overshadowed the party's preparations for the midterm elections where the GOP could reclaim control of at least one chamber of Congress and several governor's mansions.
“We should be focused on what the voters are focused on,” said Caleb Heimlich, chair of the Republican Party in Washington state. “I’ve been talking to voters in Washington state, traveling around and nobody talks about Cheney. That’s a D.C. topic.”
Republicans also set in motion a rules change rooted in another of Trump's longstanding grievances. A measure advanced that would force presidential candidates to sign a pledge saying they will not participate in any debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates advanced. It is expected to be voted on when RNC members convene again in August.
“We are not walking away from debates," McDaniel said. “We are walking away from the Commission on Presidential Debates because it’s a biased monopoly that does not serve the best interests of the American people.”
