Want to Win Elections? Let Harmeet Dhillon Run the RNC
The RNC has one job: Win elections. Ronna McDaniel has underperformed three times. We need someone who can understand the rules and knows how to play them. That's Harmeet Dhillon
The RNC Has One Job: Win Elections
The Republican National Committee (RNC) exists for one reason: to ensure that Republican candidates win elections. During the six-year tenure of incumbent Ronna McDaniel, the RNC’s performance has been somewhere between mediocre and disastrous (depending on what you believe was achievable). It’s far beyond time for a change. Harmeet Dhillon is uniquely suited to provide the change we need.
McDaniel has now presided over three election cycles: The expect wipeout of 2018, the mixed-but-disappointing 2020, and the hugely disappointing red-wave-that-wasn’t of 2022. No one in their right mind would point to this performance with pride.
There’s no reasonable argument in favor of keeping McDaniel in her position—unless, of course, the RNC’s goal is something other than winning elections for the GOP. Maybe it is. I’m hardly an insider. But as someone who believes that the country needs the GOP in power, I’d like an RNC laser-focused on winning.
Dhillon has the skills we need to deliver that victory. As a skilled litigator she knows how to do it: Focus on the rules, play them as they are, consider their implications, and fight to improve them—all at the same time.
How to Win
Winning elections is like winning anything else. You can’t hope to do it unless you understand the rules. Electoral rules in the United States are a mess. Too few states ensure the integrity of the ballot and too many states incorporate mechanisms that invite fraud. When cheating is easy, stakes are high, probability of detection is low, and penalties are minimal, it’s a safe bet that fraud will proliferate. That’s tragic. It’s also reality. Cry about it if you must, but DEAL WITH IT!
How? Several different ways—and all at once.
Study What’s Worked
First, study what’s worked for the other side and what new opportunities you can exploit. Procedures like ballot mail-outs and ballot harvesting—even if approached with total integrity—place a premium on poorly informed voters. Here’s how that works:
“Excuse me! Are you a voter? Who do you prefer—Democrats or Republicans?”
“Well, I don’t really pay too much attention to that kind of stuff. What’s the difference?”
“Republicans want to end social security!”
“That’s horrible!”
“Great! If you just signed this pre-filled form here, you’ll know that you’ve voted to save social security.”
See how easy that is? GOTV isn’t about improving governance. It’s about motivating indifferent, ill-informed voters to think kindly about your cause long enough to vote. Democrats have played that game very well for a very long time. It’s a stupid, ugly, dirty game. So what? Either play to win or forfeit. Republicans can learn to play it, too. All it takes is a change to one line: “Democrats want to mutilate your children!” or “Democrats want to sell the country to China!”
Focus on Credibility, not Fraud
Second, keep the public focus on likely shenanigans, not on fraud. Fraud is a legal standard. To overturn official election results, the losing candidate (or party) must prove fraud. That’s hard.
Fortunately, most of life is lived outside the courtroom. If you want people to trust a system, you must prove that the system is trustworthy. Supposed I flipped a coin. You called “heads” while it was in the air. I caught it, looked at it, announced “tails,” and put it back in my pocket. Would you trust the result? Not if you’re rational. Could you prove fraud? Unlikely.
The focus on fraud gets things exactly backwards. It puts the burden on us to prove we’ve been cheated—rather than on them to prove that they’re trustworthy. We can, should, and must do better. We know where the Democrats are likely to cheat. We know how they’re likely to do it. Yet we’re still caught flat-footed. A good litigator like Dhillon would know how to preempt it.
The RNC should bring a barrage of lawsuits around the country complaining about bad rules before the election—and flying back into court anytime and anyplace an election is even remotely questionable. More importantly, it should run mass press events around the issue of credibility—beginning before the elections and continuing seamlessly thereafter.
Under McDaniel, the RNC has allowed itself to be browbeaten by legal standards. We need someone who can flip the story. America must hold credible elections! Am I accusing any particular candidate of “stealing” an election? No. I’m just saying—before the election—that the process is untrustworthy because the rules are flawed.
It's hard to think of more egregious case than the recent gubernatorial election in Arizona. Katie Hobbs, the former Secretary of State, effectively announced: “The complex, opaque, broken system I oversee, which encountered numerous inexplicable technical difficulties during the election, has resulted in my narrow victory.” Anyone ever hearing such a statement should presume cheating.
Hobbs so bungled the election that her term as governor rightly deserves to function beneath a cloud of dishonesty. The RNC should be doing everything in its power to turn her election—and her entire term in office—into a poster child for the importance of election integrity. It hasn’t. That’s inexcusable. A clearer example of the problem is unlikely to materialize.
Win the Ill-Informed & Apathetic
Third, let’s go back to the part about ill-informed voters. Such voters don’t respond to white papers, subtle expositions, or legislative histories. They want slogans, bumper stickers, and elevator pitches. For those of us who like policy, such approaches are distasteful; overly simplistic at best, more often flat out wrong. I’ve written entire essays on why I dislike “stop the steal.” Who cares? “Stop the steal” is a horrible articulation of the problems plaguing America’s electoral system. It’s a marvelous bumper sticker—short, alliterative, and emotionally evocative. That’s what you need to win elections in the era of the ill-informed swing electorate.
For the next few years at least, that’s where the RNC needs to focus:
- Mastering the rules as they exist;
- Focusing attention on potential problems before they emerge;
- Catering to apathetic, ill-informed, and poorly motivated voters.
Those are the areas in which the Democrats have been cleaning our clocks, and those are the areas in which the next few elections will be won or lost. McDaniel hasn’t gotten us there. Dhillon can.
Let the candidates sort themselves out, the factions engage in internal debate, and the deep thinkers craft policy. Those tasks are all critical. For the RNC, they’re secondary to winning elections.
If we want to win, the choice should be clear. If you know any of the voting delegates to the RNC, please urge them to vote accordingly.
For more information about Bruce D. Abramson & American Restorationism, visit: www.BruceDAbramson.com
To learn more about how America’s elites destroyed the republic, see: The New Civil War: Exposing Elites, Fighting Utopian Leftism, and Restoring America (RealClear Publishing, 2021).
To learn more about the ideology driving today’s anti-American leftism, see: American Restoration: Winning America’s Second Civil War (Kindle, 2019).
To learn more about our work at the American Coalition for Education and Knowledge, visit us at https://coalition4america.com/.
To learn more about how I turn the ideas I discuss here into concrete projects that serve the interests of my clients, donors, and society at large, please e-mail me at bdabramson@pm.me.