Campaign

Trump makes radical overhaul of RNC at furious pace

by Brett Samuels - 03/15/24 5:00 AM ET

Former President Trump has transformed the Republican National Committee (RNC) in a matter of days as the organization heads into the general election campaign.

In the same week Trump officially became the presumptive nominee, the RNC hit reset, making significant staffing changes that included bringing in several new faces to senior leadership positions, firing some employees and asking others to reapply for jobs.

The radical overhaul comes as the RNC faces a significant cash disadvantage compared to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and President Biden’s campaign, and as Trump and his team prepare for a marathon campaign that will require significant resources.

Trump allies have moved quickly and aggressively to remake the RNC, beginning with the election last week of Chair Michael Whatley and co-Chair Lara Trump, both of whom had the backing of the former president — who is also Lara Trump’s father-in-law.

Chris LaCivita, who has worked as a top adviser on the Trump campaign since its launch in November 2022, shifted over to the RNC to oversee day-to-day operations.

A source confirmed to The Hill that former Trump White House adviser Sean Cairncross will serve as the RNC’s chief operating officer.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a primary election night party at the South Carolina State Fairgrounds in Columbia, South Carolina, on Feb. 24, 2024. (Andrew Harnik / The Associated Press)

In a letter to RNC members obtained by The Hill, Whatley laid out a series of senior staffing changes and outlined the party’s vision for the 2024 election cycle, calling the freshly merged Trump campaign and party a “united operation.”

Whatley said there is “one political program” between the RNC and the Trump campaign. James Blair, an adviser to the former president, will serve as political director of both operations, Whatley said.

“Our efforts will include reaching out to voters we have been habitually missing to ensure that we are growing our vote share and nobody is slipping through the cracks,” Whatley said in the letter. “Importantly, we will be encouraging Republicans to bank their vote, while also growing our vote share to turn out more Republican voters than ever before.”

The RNC will recalibrate its data operation, Whatley said, “eliminating waste” and catering to individual states. Voter contact programs will shift to maximize Trump’s ability to energize supporters, he said.

Whatley also announced an increased focus on election integrity efforts, a nod to Trump’s fixation on fraud in the 2020 election and the numerous unsuccessful lawsuits he pursued in the wake of his defeat.

Charlie Spies, a longtime GOP lawyer, will serve as chief counsel. Christina Bobb, a former One America News host who has pushed the false claim the 2020 election was fraudulent, will serve as senior counsel for election integrity. And Bill McGinley, an attorney who served in the Trump administration, will join the RNC as outside counsel for election integrity.

“The RNC’s new posture as it relates to this litigation will be an aggressive, proactive effort to ensure that it will be easy to vote and hard to cheat,” Whatley wrote.

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It is not unusual for a presumptive candidate to make changes to the party apparatus and to install their preferred leadership.

“We need to see more about what the changes are and what the potential impact will be,” said Doug Heye, a former spokesperson for the RNC who added that Cairncross is “a pro’s pro and will help tighten things that need tightening.”

But the rapid staffing turnover and reported shift in priorities has sparked uncertainty about how the party will handle funding down-ballot candidates or programs built up under the previous chair, Ronna McDaniel. Some former RNC officials have raised concerns about how fully Trump and his team have taken over the party.

Fundraising is a particular point of concern for the RNC, and for Trump personally as he burns through millions of dollars to pay his legal fees. He is facing dozens of felony counts across four criminal cases in New York City; Georgia; Washington, D.C.; and Florida.

Trump is also facing multimillion-dollar judgments over a civil fraud trial involving his business and a defamation case brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who alleged Trump had sexually assaulted her decades ago.

LaCivita has dismissed speculation that RNC funds will be used to cover Trump’s legal costs, though Lara Trump has argued Republican voters would not have a problem with it.

The president’s daughter-in-law is expected to play a central role in attempting to jolt Republican fundraising.

“I think the change in leadership at the RNC has really inspired a lot of people to give. This past weekend we had our best fundraising weekend since 2020,” Lara Trump told Newsmax on Wednesday.

“People understand this is a must-win election, and I think they’re very confident in the team we now have between myself as co-chair and Michael Whatley as chairman,” she continued. “That money is going to start coming back in; people are going to hear directly from me. … We do have to catch up. I believe we will.”

But the RNC will be playing catch-up ahead of what is shaping up to be one of the longest general election campaigns in recent history.

The party reported having just more than $8 million in cash on hand at the beginning of 2024, following an underwhelming fundraising year in 2023.

By comparison, the DNC and Biden campaign has built up a massive funding base, entering 2024 with $117 million in cash on hand. The Biden campaign has broken its own grassroots funding records four months in a row.

“It’s clear that donors aren’t buying what the RNC is selling,” DNC executive director Sam Cornale wrote in a memo released Wednesday. “Between dire finances, abysmal fundraising, frantic mass firings, and a string of devastating electoral losses, the RNC is barely able to stay afloat — much less build a winning operation for the general election.”