The Republican National Committee is reportedly easing off plans to close minority outreach centers and shutter an early voting program following pushback from committee members.
Both actions had been expected, though never formalized after former President Donald Trump passed the primary delegate threshold to secure the 2024 GOP nomination and the election of Michael Whatley and Lara Trump to serve as the committee’s next chairman and co-chair. Since then, there has been an overhaul at the organization, and dozens of positions have been cut.
Whatley sent a memo to committee members Thursday overnight outlining the committee’s plans to merge assets with the Trump campaign, as is tradition for party nominees, in which he highlighted the need to continue all voter outreach efforts, including raising early voting awareness and reaching out to non-white voters.
“Every tool that the other side has used, we need to wield for ourselves,” Whatley wrote in the memo. “We will strive relentlessly towards historic accomplishments, and fully modernizing the organization between now and Election Day.”
Whatley’s memo additionally stated that the committee plans to “challenge voter identification and signature verification rules which were put into place for the 2020 election.”
Trump backed Whatley’s replacement of former chairwoman Ronna McDaniel largely based on his vocal challenges to the results of the 2020 general election.
Lara Trump also confirmed that the RNC will keep the minority outreach centers open in an interview with Fox News.
“I can assure you: At the RNC and at the Trump campaign, this is a wide-open tent,” she told Fox of recent reporting indicating the RNC would end minority outreach efforts. “The idea that this is a party closed off to anyone is false. We want everyone to come in. We want everyone to vote, because we want everyone in this country to succeed. So those reports are not correct.”
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RNC member Shawn Steele said in an interview with Axios that rank-and-file committee members believed that closing minority outreach efforts and eliminating early voting initiatives would negatively impact the party in future elections.
“It’s important in states where people can vote early that Republicans participate in that,” he stated. “There are probably 1,000,000 Asian American votes in the five battleground states. Community engagement would be fantastically effective. That would include, of course, legions of African American males and Latinos in general.”
