Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appeared during an interview on Thursday to back attorney Harmeet Dhillon in her bid to become the new chair of the Republican National Committee.
DeSantis’ remarks come one day before RNC committee members will vote on a secret ballot for positions in the party, including the chairmanship.
“I think we need to get some new blood in the RNC,” DeSantis said during an 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 slammed the performance of RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel during the interview, saying that the GOP has experienced several bad election cycles under her watch.
“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,” DeSantis said. “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 said that the party 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,” DeSantis continued.
When asked about his experience with the RNC, DeSantis said 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 said that his dominant win in the state was driven by his own get out the vote operation and ground game.
“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,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis also said that the Republican Party needs to become less “consultant driven” and focus more on the needs of the 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,” said DeSantis.”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 added.