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Donald Trump addresses the crowd at a rally in Rome, Georgia on Saturday.
© David Walter Banks/The Washington Post
Donald Trump is adjusting his campaign to secure more votes in the November elections.
To do this, he is making massive changes to the Republican National Committee.
Washington DC - Former President Donald Trump took over the leadership of the Republican National Committee (RNC) this week with the political equivalent of shock and awe - sidelining dozens of staffers, shifting strategic priorities and raising fears among some former officials the party's future support for candidates on the lower electoral lists.
The top leadership was almost entirely replaced or reshuffled, while dozens of lower-ranking officials, including state executives, were either fired or asked to reapply for their jobs.
A nationwide network of community centers that was once a staple of the party's efforts to attract minority voters is being closed or refocused on voter canvassing.
The much-touted "Bank Your Vote" program, designed to encourage Republicans to vote early, is being transformed into a "Grow The Vote" program more focused on expanding the party's reach to less likely Trump voters to expand.
Trump's team, led by campaign adviser Chris LaCivita, is bringing in allies who LaCivita says will run a leaner, more aggressive operation with more political experience.
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Trump heads the RNC: the election campaign is to be expanded
“It’s about changing the mindset,” LaCivita said in an interview Tuesday.
“The RNC is as much a part of the Trump campaign as the Trump campaign is a part of the RNC.
From our standpoint, it is really important that everyone understands that in an election campaign that will be unprecedented in history, everyone has the same goal.”
The RNC's political director, chief data officer and communications director have all been replaced, according to people familiar with the proceedings.
The chief of staff and chief legal counsel voluntarily left the position before LaCivita took over.
One of the most experienced lawyers in GOP politics, Charlie Spies, who recently served as the architect of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' failed presidential bid, will take over as general counsel.
Additionally, LaCivita is tapping Christina Bobb — a former OAN reporter who made false claims that the 2020 election was stolen — as senior election integrity advisor.
Bobb is the author of a book called “Stealing Your Vote: The Inside Story of the 2020 Election and What It Means for 2024” and advocated for an audit of Arizona’s elections.
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Former President Donald Trump speaks at a Super Tuesday election party at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.
© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
Trump regroups Republican National Convention: “Much more offensive and much less defensive”
“I am honored to join the RNC and excited that the new leadership is focused on election integrity,” Bobb said in a statement.
“I look forward to working to secure our elections and restore trust in the process.”
The RNC's new leadership has discussed a broader effort in the coming months to challenge voter identification and signature verification rules put in place for the 2020 election.
“The RNC’s new stance on litigation is much more offensive and much less defensive,” LaCivita said in the interview.
Some Trump allies have privately questioned the hiring of Spies, a longtime GOP lawyer who previously worked for super PACs that backed the presidential campaigns of Republicans Mitt Romney in 2012 and Jeb Bush in 2016.
LaCivita praised Spies as one of the party's top campaign lawyers, respected by donors for his innovations in fundraising and actively involved in election law litigation.
Some former Republican officials, caught off guard by the dramatic changes, have expressed concerns about the takeover, which usually comes in some form at the end of an open primary campaign.
Former RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, long a close adviser to Trump, was described as blindsided by the scale and speed of changes aimed at her efforts to align Trump's interests with the interests of the rest of the party.
“There will be no RNC operation that helps the larger party.
They don’t care about the larger party,” said a former RNC official who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect future job prospects.
“The RNC is important to many people in the lower voting districts.
They shut down every service that helps no one but Donald Trump.
It’s all about Trump.”
LaCivita countered that the rising tide of Trump's candidacy will lift all Republican boats this year and that the RNC will continue to work closely with the House and Senate Republican Party committees.
Before the presidential election in the USA: Trump takes over the leadership of the RNC and intensifies the election campaign
Sean Cairncross, a former Trump White House adviser who served on the RNC during the 2016 campaign, is the new chief operating officer.
And James Blair, a top adviser to Trump, is also taking on a senior policy role at the RNC.
Blair is a longtime associate in Florida and is close to Susie Wiles, Trump's de facto chief of staff.
“If you do not reapply, your last day of work will be March 31, 2024,” Cairncross wrote in an email to some laid-off employees, obtained by The Washington Post.
The changes at the RNC were described by LaCivita and eight other current and former party officials, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal changes.
Trump had made it clear that he wanted changes in the RNC even before he cleared the field of competitors for the Republican nomination.
Trump resented McDaniel last year when she stuck to her promise to remain neutral in the nomination fight and continued to sponsor primary debates long after Trump made it clear he would not participate.
McDaniel called on the party to rally behind Trump after he won the New Hampshire primary in late January, but was soon deposed.
At Trump's direction, the RNC voted Friday to elect former North Carolina GOP Chairman Michael Whatley and Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump to senior positions to replace McDaniel.
Lara Trump is married to the former president's son Eric, who now runs the family's hospitality and branding business.
They have also decided not to use RNC funds for Trump's ongoing legal fees in the coming months, in part because his status as a candidate would likely mean the funds would have to come directly from the party's limited political budget, which coordinates with the campaign becomes.
Trump has long argued that his legal prosecutions are politically motivated, suggesting that any spending on his own lawyer is a form of political spending.
Trump takes over RNC leadership: Republicans have to struggle with financial problems
The RNC has a money problem to deal with.
The Democratic National Committee, which serves as part of Biden's campaign, had $24 million in the bank at the end of January - nearly triple the Republican National Committee's $8.7 million.
The entire transformation is being led by LaCivita, a combative and experienced strategist who led the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth efforts against Democratic nominee John F. Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign, as well as massive outside spending on Trump in 2020 and countless other state and federal campaigns.
A former Marine Corps sergeant who earned a Purple Heart in the 1991 Gulf War, LaCivita has served as a senior policy adviser to Trump since the start of his 2024 campaign, although he has not adopted a formal title.
He will take on a new dual role, overseeing coordinated campaign efforts at the RNC while maintaining his position as an adviser to Trump's campaign.
The new approach is aimed in part at avoiding the deep dysfunction in coordinating messages and advertising that hampered Trump in 2020, when hostility flared between McDaniel and Trump's second campaign manager, Bill Stepien.
Relations became so bad that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and top campaign adviser in 2020, had to call a meeting between the campaign and party teams in October of that year to determine a promotional strategy for the final weeks of the campaign.
The layoffs were made by LaCivita, who met with employees in the human resources manager's office, according to people familiar with them.
In some cases, LaCivita told employees they had done nothing wrong, he just wanted his own team.
Most of the employees were gone within a few hours.
To the authors
Michael Scherer
is a political reporter at The Washington Post.
He was previously Washington bureau chief for Time magazine, where he also served as a White House correspondent.
Before joining Time, he was the Washington correspondent for Salon.com.
Josh Dawsey
is a political enterprise and investigations reporter at The Washington Post.
He has worked for the newspaper since 2017 and previously covered the White House.
Previously, he covered the White House for Politico and covered New York City Hall and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for the Wall Street Journal.
Marianne LeVine
is a national political reporter for The Washington Post.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on March 13, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.