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Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel may seek what would be a modern-day record fourth term steering the GOP’s national committee.
Multiple Republican sources attending the RNC’s spring training gathering in Memphis, Tennessee, confirm to Fox News that McDaniel told the 168 committee members at a closed-door meeting on Wednesday that she’s mulling running for another term in January, if the party fares well in November’s midterm elections.
And a source with knowledge of the conversation confirmed that McDaniel met recently with former President Donald Trump to discuss the possibility of seeking a fourth two-year term, and received encouragement from the former president, who remains the most popular and influential politician in the GOP.
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Trump backed McDaniel, who’s the niece of Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, for RNC chair in 2017 after the then-Michigan GOP chair helped deliver the key battleground state for Trump in the 2016 election. She was re-elected to the post in 2019 and 2021, both times with Trump’s support.
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds in Florence, Arizona, on Jan. 15, 2022.
(Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump praised McDaniel this week in a video viewed by RNC members at the meeting in Memphis.
“Conservatives are united behind Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. She’s done a tremendous job,” the former president said in the video, which was first reported by Politico.
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The RNC won’t vote for chair until their winter meeting next January, and party officials stressed that no decisions will be made until after the midterm elections.
“The RNC chairwoman, members and staff are solely focused on winning in 2022 and taking control of the House and Senate. Any speculation beyond that is premature and a distraction to our unified goal,” RNC senior adviser Richard Walters said.
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel speaks with Fox News at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership meeting, in Las Vegas, Nevada on Nov. 5, 2021.
(Fox News )
An RNC committee member attending the Memphis meeting who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely told Fox News that McDaniel “has a good relationship with the overall membership. My sense is that if she wanted to run again and did, she’d probably get re-elected.”
Another committee member who also asked for anonymity said McDaniel is “liked at the committee, but anybody not focused on ’22 doesn’t have their eye on the ball.”
There’s been some speculation the past couple of months that RNC member from Maryland David Bossie may also be interested in bidding for chair next year. Bossie, a Trump ally and president of Citizens United, was one of the leaders behind the RNC’s move at their winter meeting in February to censure GOP Rep. Liz Cheney for her role on a Democrat-led House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by right wing extremists aiming to upend congressional certification of President Biden’s 2020 election victory.
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Bossie said in a Vanity Fair article earlier this year that he had “no plans to run.”
And Republican sources tell Fox News that if McDaniel seeks another term, Bossie won’t run for chair.
