COMING HOME (EARLY)
It looks like National Republican Committee (NRC) Chairwoman Ronna (Romney) McDaniel, a Northville resident, won’t be hanging out to finish her fourth term that was to run until 2025. Multiple media reports are predicting that the 51-year-old former graduate of Lahser High School in Bloomfield Township will be resigning shortly after the February 24 primary in South Carolina, largely because former President Donald Trump appears to be dissatisfied with her, along with rumblings from conservative party critics and some donors. McDaniel has a storied political family lineage – granddaughter of former Michigan Gov. George W. Romney, niece of former Massachusetts Gov. and now U.S. Senator Mitt Romney, and a mother and grandmother who were politically active and who both ran for U.S. Senate. McDaniel was co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party from 2015-2017. She was then elected as national party chair, with the backing of Trump following his win in 2016. To her credit was the party performance that allowed Trump to take Michigan when he first ran, and in her early tenure at the NRC she was able to hustle respectable levels of donations which is a major part of the chair’s job. McDaniel did suffer some blowback in 2021 when she attempted to expand the GOP tent with the creation of a Pride Coalition and her issuance of a statement celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride month. But of late her detractors point to state-level losses for Republicans and control of the U.S. House and Senate, along with a slowdown on the donation front. Then there’s the Trump factor. While he doesn’t just get to name the RNC co-chairs, his opinion carries major weight when the RNC members vote on who will take her place. Trump has endorsed North Carolina GOP Chairman Michael Whatley, currently general counsel at the RNC and one of the party members who wholeheartedly bought into the election fraud nonsense still being promoted by the former prez, which some say has helped discourage direct donations to the national party operation. Also endorsed by Trump as co-chair is daughter-in-law Lara Trump to meet party rules that both a male and female serve as co-chairs. McDaniel still has plenty of supporters at the national level as well as back home, like Jeff Sakwa, co-chair with Romney McDaniel of Michigan GOP, who captured it best: “She’s true to herself. She doesn’t play games and she’s nobody’s fool. What people need to understand is it’s hard to raise money for (candidates like) Herschel Walker, Dr. Oz and Kristina Karamo. The greatest coach can’t coach lousy players. As long as this guy (Trump) is in charge, the insanity continues.”