RNC chair stresses GOP candidates should back whoever wins 2024 nomination

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Sunday stressed that GOP presidential candidates should get behind whoever wins the party’s 2024 nomination.

“The voters get to choose. And if the Republican voters pick the nominee, then everybody on that debate stage, who is running … in the Republican National Committee primaries, should say, ‘I’m going to support the nominee,’ ” McDaniel said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

McDaniel, who just won a fourth term as RNC chair, also said she expects GOP candidates will be asked to sign a pledge that they’ll support the eventual nominee in order to get on the debate stage. 

“I think they’re all going to sign it. I really do. I think the voters are very intent on winning and they do not want to see a debate stage of people saying, ‘I’m not going to support this guy,’ ” she said. “What they need to say is ‘I’m gonna do everything I can to defeat Joe Biden’ and that means supporting the nominee of the Republican Party.”

CNN’s Dana Bash highlighted that former President Trump, who’s running for reelection, said during his 2016 and 2020 campaigns that his endorsement would depend on who won the GOP primary. 

“I think President Trump would like to be on the debate stage. That’s what he likes to do,” McDaniel said on Sunday. 

“Listen, I say this all the time … I am Mitt Romney’s niece, and I was appointed to the RNC by Donald Trump. And I would support both of them, if they were the nominee of our party, over Joe Biden. But I don’t know if they would support each other. We have to come together as a party,” McDaniel said. 

“We saw big races lost this cycle, because of Republicans refusing to support other Republicans. And unless we fix this in our party, unless we start coming together, we will not win in 2024.”