Donald Trump’s associates in charge of the Republican National Committee have had a difficult first month, buffeted by staffing issues and organizational headaches as they try to bring the party apparatus under the Trump campaign’s control before the 2024 elections.
Internal conflict within the RNC has driven the Trump team to privately chastise its new leaders in recent weeks. According to many sources familiar with the situation, the move to arrange a purge may have backfired, with far-reaching ramifications for the RNC.
The Trump takeover of the RNC began with a show of force, just days after the new chair, Michael Whatley, and the new co-chair, Lara Trump, were elected, when letters were sent to whole teams at the organization warning them that they could leave and reapply for their jobs or be fired.
The aim was to avoid any potential overlap between the RNC and the Trump campaign, which already possessed robust political and communications departments, and to eliminate any employees who were not fully committed to Trump and the Maga movement.
However, the threats of termination and the suspected loyalty tests, which proved to be correct when staffers were asked in job interviews if they thought the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, despite the fact that there is no evidence of election fraud, may have been overly forceful.
Although the new RNC leadership secretly issued offers to the majority of previous staffers, with the exception of those who worked in the RNC political department, some key team members refused to return, according to sources.
As a result of the scenario, the RNC has been left without people with extensive expertise in election operations at the Republican Party’s central committee who are ready to work for significantly less pay than they could make in the private sector.
We anticipated synergy when we brought the RNC into the Trump campaign. While some of those efficiencies have been realized, the sources say the perhaps excessively zealous approach may have caused harm elsewhere.
The RNC’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Trump campaign’s headquarters in Palm Beach, Florida will house the RNC’s analytics division, which is becoming more and more important in presidential elections.
The new RNC leadership recently began offering data team personnel accommodation on the Trump campaign campus, dubbed “Trump Village,” in the hopes that covering residential costs and logistical difficulties would encourage them to stay.
For some employees, the home component of their job may have had the opposite effect. Some personnel who declined return offers stated that they detested the idea of living at work, which might include living among the most dedicated Trump campaign staffers.
Separately, while senior Trump campaign officials have long stated that working on a presidential campaign entails traveling to the campaign’s headquarters, the prospect of moving to Florida did not appeal to several ex-RNC staffers, who pointed out that they believed they were working for the GOP.
The possibility of loyalty tests appears to have alarmed some RNC employees, who declined to return to their previous positions.
RNC staffers have long known that the best way to answer the question of whether the 2020 election was stolen is to say there were “irregularities.” Questioning them led them to believe that the Trump campaign distrusted RNC staffers and would always target them.
The new RNC leaders’ only bright light since their takeover has been Trump’s best fundraising month of 2024, now that the former president is working with the committee as part of a cooperative fundraising pact.
Trump and the Republican National Committee raised $65.6 million in March, the party revealed last week. The party reported that Trump, the RNC, and their shared accounts now have $93.1 million in cash on hand for April, about double what they had a month ago, as they close the cash gap with Joe Biden’s campaign coffers.
For some weeks, the joint fundraising agreement has been a top focus. By collaborating on fundraising, Trump and the RNC can collect gifts of up to $814,600. During the Republican primaries, Trump was prohibited from accepting checks up to $6,600 through his campaign.
