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Thanks to a reversal of confidence from the former president, her term will likely end within the next few months. Since she took office, her party has lost the presidency, lost control of the Senate, barely held the House of Representatives and lost nearly a fifth of state governorships.
But McDaniel is not as much to blame for these federal losses as Trump.
Running a national political party is a strange job. There is much less steering the party toward ideal candidates and campaigns, and much more fundraising. In modern times, success generally means securing a slightly larger share of the vote to thin the parliamentary majority. Success is often a matter of inches.
Republicans have controlled the White House for 12 of the past 25 years. The House and Senate caucuses fluctuate above and below the midpoint of each chamber, and are rarely far apart. Thanks to the overwhelmingly rural red states, they have fared well in state capitols and capitols.
In fact, the pattern for the past 25 years has been one of feast or famine. The Republican Party suffered a major collapse in his 2006 and his 2008, gained ground in 2010 and his 2014, and became unstable in 2018. His past four RNC chairmen have steered and overseen the party during this period. sphere of political influence.
But if you compare the beginning and the end of the most recent speakerships, you can see why Republicans are unhappy with McDaniel. Under Michael Steele, who held the position during the 2010 Red Wave, the party gained support in state capitals and on Capitol Hill. Reince Priebus worked at the RNC from 2011 to 2017, overseeing additional interests, including the White House, which he served at the time of Trump’s inauguration.
Even putting the Trump issue aside, McDaniel was in a tough position. As Democrats who were active in the party in 2009 said, a party that controls the White House and both houses of Congress has nowhere to go but decline. But it is nonetheless true that the party surrendered all of those majorities during her tenure. Republicans took back the House in early 2023, but still underperformed. Historical trends suggest that the first-term president’s party should have lost far more seats than President Biden’s Democratic Party.
But again, the blame here doesn’t lie solely, or even primarily, with McDaniel.
Trump cemented his position as leader of the party with his 2016 victory and has refused to relinquish that title ever since, despite his 2020 loss. The 2018 midterm elections, in which the Democratic Party went on a rampage, were more than anything a referendum on Mr. Trump. The same was true for most special elections held during President Trump’s term. Voters turned out in droves to vote against Trump’s party. In 2020, most people who voted for Biden told pollsters that their vote was intended as a vote against Trump, not for a Democrat.
Recent polls have found that to be the case again, showing that the expected vote in 2024 is about Trump, not Biden. In 2022, the Republican Party’s performance was heavily influenced by abortion policy, which came into play thanks to President Trump’s Supreme Court appointments. However, 2022 was also marked by Trumpism, especially in the Senate race, where Trump anointed Republican candidates who continued to lose in races they thought they could win.
Of course, this does not absolve McDaniel of responsibility. She maintained her position for years by bending over backwards to cater to President Trump’s every whim. Deploying her stronger leadership might have changed some of her election results, but it also meant she would be pushed into a new job more quickly. Nor can Mr. Trump be blamed for the party’s recent fundraising problems.
But it’s never fair to think that Republicans have lost political power since 2017 primarily because of McDaniel. This decline was consistent with historical patterns. Things were also made significantly worse by the party’s true leadership, the man who had originally chosen McDaniel to run the Republican National Committee.
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