RNC chair McDaniel glosses over election postmortem leak that didn't mention Trump

May 1, 2023

Some Republicans were a bit miffed when an election postmortem memo draft by RNC chair Ronna McDaniel didn't mention former President Donald Trump by name as a reason for some of the losses, but she downplayed the omission during an appearance on Fox News Sunday.

A draft version of the memo leaked to the Washington Post said that Republicans' less-than-ideal results in the 2022 midterms were because people weren't keen on "relitigating previous elections" but didn't mention Trump by name.

McDaniel said the leaked draft was not a final version of the memo and gave her own assessment of the reasons for the poor midterm performance.

"Independents did not break our way, which has to happen if we're going to win in 2024, which usually, that's what causes that red wave. And abortion was a big issue in key states like Michigan and Pennsylvania," McDaniel told Fox News Sunday. "The guidance we're going to give to our candidates is you have to address this head-on."

She was also asked about early voting and ballot harvesting and conceded that Republicans probably need to work more on "investing" in elections earlier, the same way Democrats do.

Trump, the current 2024 GOP primary frontrunner, has spoken out against ballot harvesting and early voting but recently agreed that Republicans need to get on board with those strategies, where permissible, in order to win elections.