As of last week, the Republican National Committee (RNC) officially has new leadership. Michael Whatley (pictured above) has replaced Ronna McDaniel as chair, and Laura Trump, President Trump's daughter-in-law, is co-chair.
McDaniel resigned amid discord with the former president during the primary process. Whatley, who has served as chair of the North Carolina GOP and RNC general counsel, is a Trump loyalist who has echoed the former president's rhetoric about "election integrity" in the wake of the 2020 election, which he maintains was stolen.
Phillip Jauregui, senior counsel and director of the Center for Judicial Renewal at AFA Action, is interested in Whatley's vow to focus the organization "like a laser on getting out the vote and protecting the ballot."
"You would hope with the candidate's daughter-in-law being on the team there that they are going to be focused on turn out the vote efforts and really get down into the nuts and bolts of what a political party ought to do," Jauregui comments. "The Democrats have done that really well; the Republicans haven't."
He thinks this new team cements Trump's leadership in the RNC, and he hopes they are ready for the work ahead of them, which includes legal ballot harvesting. That, Jauregui says, is something the GOP has struggled to rally around.
"Ballot harvesting is never the way that we wanted to see voting go," he acknowledges. "But it's kind of like if the rules to a football game are changed and you say, 'Well, I don't like that rule, so I'm not going to avail myself to it,' then you put yourself at a distinct disadvantage.'"
"If these are the rules that we're going to play voting by, then both parties need to take advantage of those," the attorney continues. "If that means ballot harvesting, and that's legal, then so be it."
