As part of an interview carried out late last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seemingly showed his backing for attorney Harmeet Dhillon in her attempts to secure the role of chair for the Republican National Committee.
The comments for DeSantis took place just a day prior to the members of the RNC committee carrying out a vote via the use of a secret ballot for roles in the party, including the role of the new chairman.
“I think we need to get some new blood in the RNC,” stated DeSantis in the aforementioned interview. “I like what Harmeet Dhillon has said about getting the RNC out of D.C. Why would you want to have your headquarters in the most Democrat city in America? It’s more Democrat than San Francisco is.”
DeSantis went off on the performance of the previous RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel as part of the interview, stating that the GOP has had to deal with a number of bad election cycles under her guidance.
“We’ve had three substandard election cycles in a row, ’18, ’20, and ’22, and I would say of all three of those, ’22 was probably the worst, given the political environment of a very unpopular President Biden, huge majorities of the people think the country is going in the wrong direction,” explained DeSantis. “That is an environment that’s tailor-made to make big gains in the House and Senate and state houses all across the country, and yet that didn’t happen.”
DeSantis claimed that the party just needs “fresh thinking — here’s the thing, just practically speaking, you need grassroots Republicans to power this organization with volunteering and donations.”
“I think it’s going to be very difficult to energize people to want to give money, to want to volunteer their time with the RNC if they don’t see a change in direction,” he went on.
When questioned about his personal experience in dealing with the RNC, DeSantis stated that his campaign “ran our election, assuming we weren’t going to be involved with the RNC at all.”
🚨BREAKING: Gov. DeSantis calls for Change at the RNC🚨
"We've had 3 substandard election cycles in a row, '18, '20, and '22, and I'd say '22 was the worst…I think we need a change. I think we need to get some new blood in the RNC. I like what Harmeet Dhillon has said…" pic.twitter.com/dayeCSVtJ0
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) January 26, 2023
DeSantis stated that his landslide victory in his state was pushed by his own ground game coupled with his own get-out-the-vote operation.
“So it was very successful, you know, but that was really being driven by our agenda, our accomplishments, and us putting a lot of dollars behind this important ground game,” expressed the Governor.
DeSantis also explained that the Republican Party very much needs to become far less “consultant driven” and should put far more focus on the needs of the average voters.
“This money that’s going in needs to go to ultimately winning elections and not to be lining the pocket of so many consultants. So we need huge transparency on that,” he stated. “You can’t have incentives to where the campaigns and the operations are run with an eye to putting more money in the pocket of the consultant class. And obviously, they’re very powerful in D.C.”
“There’s not a lot of trust between the grassroots and the RNC up in D.C. In fact, when I would do fundraising, I’d raise money for the Republican Party of Florida, we would do good, but if I did fundraising for me instead of for the party, we’d raise much more money, because they trust the people that they see doing the job,” he concluded.
