The United States’ Republican Party is set to elect the next head of the Republican National Committee (RNC) – its governing body – on Friday, January 27, in a leadership battle which is seeing multiple contenders, and larger worries about the unity of the party after recent election losses.
Among the contenders are India-born Harmeet Dhillon, one-time lawyer to former US President Donald Trump, and current RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who is the niece of 2012 US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. McDaniel has been the incumbent for three two-year terms.
Dhillon, who is a Sikh, has made strong comments against McDaniel, alleging her of religious bigotry, misspending and privately claiming she can control Trump, reported the AP. Additionally, Republicans who back Trump can also pose a challenge to the task of uniting behind a single candidate.
Who is Harmeet Dhillon?
Dhillon was born in Chandigarh. Her family immigrated to the US when she was young, to flee the “Russian-style socialism” of India, she told the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine in 2013. Her father was an orthopaedic surgeon and they lived in London before moving permanently to the US.
As mentioned in the 2013 interview, she told the San Francisco Chronicle that after an arranged marriage, where her husband almost “beat me to death”, she left him and enrolled at the University of Virginia School of Law. She is now married to Sarvjit Randhawa.
In her legal career, Dhillon has worked in cases related to unfair competition/trade secret misappropriation, intellectual property, employment discrimination and civil rights. Dhillon also looks at cases relating to election and campaign law matters.
She founded her own firm in 2006 and engaged in “conservative activism”. Dhillon has filed litigation on behalf of Trump supporters who claimed police failed to protect them during a protest, against subpoenas issued for him relating to the January 6, 2021 riots in the US and against stay-at-home orders in 2020 in California during the Covid pandemic.
What is the role of the RNC chairperson?
According to The Washington Post, under RNC bylaws, there are two mandatory duties “Convening a national convention to nominate candidates for president and vice president, and holding two annual meetings for the RNC member body over which the chair presides.” Fundraising for the party is also an important part of the job.
The only people who can vote in the election are the 168 members of the RNC, made up of three representatives from each of the US states, and each state or territory is represented by a chair (any gender), one national committeeman and one national committeewoman. A majority vote is needed to win and multiple rounds of voting could happen till a winner is chosen. The next RNC chair will also lead the party through the 2024 presidential election.
Dhillon has also said her campaigning is based on the need for changing the perception of the party’s leadership, traditionally having white men as leaders. She delivered a Sikh prayer at 2016’s Republican National Convention – the annual party event before the US Presidential elections, in which the official candidate is declared.
She once said, “Abercrombie & Fitch doesn’t have octogenarians wearing their clothes. They have hot young people because that’s their market. And if our market as a Republican Party is the growing number of Latinos, Asians, people of different backgrounds, new immigrants – which it has to be demographically to win – we have to promote and showcase leaders in our party who come from those backgrounds.”
Why is the race for RNC chair contentious?
There is a general sense of disagreement in the party at the moment, as it tries to balance its broader ideology of fiscal and social conservatism with the more extreme supporters of those ideas. McDaniel is now being seen by some members as unsuccessful in leading the party, because of the underwhelming results in the 2022 midterm elections.
Though some party members claim that Trump has always supported McDaniel for the position, there is no formal confirmation from him yet.
This absence of clarity from Trump, the only Presidential candidate for 2024 for now, was seen earlier this month too, when Republicans in the House of Representatives failed for days to elect a leader despite having a majority, because a faction of far-right Republicans wanted someone more aligned with their policies, instead of eventual leader Kevin McCarthy.
Dhillon said she would “of course” support McDaniel if she wins, and that she is a “team player.”
In her legal career, Harmeet Dhillon has worked in cases related to unfair competition/trade secret misappropriation, intellectual property, employment discrimination and civil rights. (AP) 
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