Last Updated on November 10, 2023
National File has confirmed that Ronna Romney McDaniel and the Republican National Committee abandoned Virginia Republicans ahead of the state’s 2023 elections, in which the GOP suffered catastrophic losses with Democrats winning control of the state’s House of Delegates and expanding their control over the State Senate.
The Republican National Committee, led by Ronna Romney McDaniel, refused to fund the Republican Party of Virginia as Democrats dumped millions of dollars into the state’s 2023 elections, in which the entire state legislature was up for grabs midway through the term of Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin.
Revelations that the RNC left Virginia Republicans to starve come after Ronna Romney McDaniel blamed Governor Glenn Youngkin and the RPV for the blood bath on election night, telling WMAL host and reporter Larry O’Connor that “We were told in the summer they didn’t need us, that they had all the money and they were good. So, that was a conversation.”
On the contrary, National File has learned from RPV Chairman Rich Anderson that the state party did, in fact, request assistance from the national committee, only to be rejected and told that with donations down and the 2024 presidential race on the horizon, Virginia Republicans were on their own.
“Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert and I met with senior RNC staffers on October 9th to ask for a transfer of funds from RNC to RPV to simulate what the DNC transferred to the DPVA,” Chairman Anderson told National File.
“Their explanation to me was that it would be difficult to do so because giving is down at the federal level, driven by this not being an election year for them – while they are currently preparing for the costliest federal election cycle (2024) in US history.”
Related: Ronna Romney McDaniel Claims On Video That The RNC Did Not Engage In The Virginia Loss Because Glenn Youngkin Said The RNC Wasn’t Needed
Prior to making his comments to National File, RPV Chairman Anderson joined Larry O’Connor (the reporter who spoke with McDaniel on election night), confirming in that interview as well that Ronna Romney McDaniel and her RNC leadership left Virginia out in the cold.
Making the financial freeze-out from the RNC even worse, Anderson told O’Connor that an early analysis from the Youngkin-aligned Sprit of Virginia PAC has found that Democrats won control of the Virginia General Assembly by a razor-thin margin.
Legislative control, Anderson said, “was decided in this cycle by 1/10th of 1% of 2.3 million votes cast.”
Listen to Rich Anderson’s interview with Larry O’Connor below:
Red Vest Massacre: VA Democrats Win Control of House, Expand Senate Majority, Crippling Glenn Youngkin
Though RPV Chairman Anderson responded to National File and made clear that the RNC refused to help support the state party’s 2023 campaigns, the office of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin refused to answer when asked if Youngkin personally called off the funds, as McDaniel claims.
It should be noted that Youngkin and his Spirit of Virginia PAC are a separate entity from the Republican Party of Virginia.
When reached by National File for comment, the Governor’s office forwarded the issue directly to the Spirit of Virginia PAC, which refused to provide an answer one way or another as to whether or not Youngkin rejected RNC funds, blaming Democrat spending and the issue of abortion for the loss.
“We knew from the very beginning that we’d be outspent in this election with every national Democrat group pouring millions into the state,” David Rexrode, a Senior Advisor to Governor Glenn Youngkin, told National File.
“Our candidates responded to their negative TV barrage on abortion by showing the Democrat position of ‘no limits’ is too extreme and that Republicans have a commonsense position. But when we are being significantly outspent in the Washington, D.C. media market our message got drowned out. Our candidates needed every resource available and, as the Governor said many times, we couldn’t afford to have anyone sitting on the sidelines if we were to win these close elections in a state Biden won by 10.”