Lara Trump, recently elected co-chair of the Republican National Committee, said the GOP must use “legal ballot harvesting” to stay competitive against Democrats before November.
“We’re playing checkers, and the Democrats are playing chess,” Trump, former President Trump’s son-in-law, said in a recent interview with the Washington Examiner. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a voting day, we don’t have paper ballots, we don’t have voter ID anywhere. So we have to play the hand we’re dealt.”
He emphasized the importance of early voting and mail-in voting whenever possible.
“That way, we have votes banked as we head into Election Day, and we’re not playing games on Nov. 5 with the Democrats,” he said.
“We need to do legal ballot harvesting — something the RNC has never done, but I can promise you will be a big part of what we’re planning to do,” Lara Trump told the Examiner. “And then Election Day comes, and you’ll see that, I think, it’s not just about having poll watchers. It’s about having trained poll watchers and lawyers in locations all over country if necessary. And these are the people who will be trained and able to physically count how many ballots come in. And how many ballots come out.”
LARA TRUMP SAYS ‘EVERY SINGLE PENNY’ OF RNC FUNDS WILL GO TO ELECTING DONALD TRUMP IF HE IS MADE CO-CHAIR
Explaining his vision for the RNC after longtime chair Ronna McDaniel stepped down Friday, Trump said his goal is to “restore people’s confidence in our electoral process.”
“Honestly, people feel like they don’t know if/when they donate their money to the RNC, it will ultimately go to the causes they care about,” Lara Trump said. “I hope to be there as someone who will make sure that, in fact, every single dollar donated goes to making sure that we win on Election Day – at the top of the ballot and down the ballot.”
The Republican National Committee voted Friday to install Donald Trump’s handpicked leadership team, as the former president closed in on a third straight presidential nomination.
Lara Trump, the newly elected co-chair of the RNC, holds up a donation check during the general session of the organization’s spring meeting on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Houston. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke)
Michael Whatley, a North Carolina Republican, was elected the party’s new national chairman in a vote Friday morning in Houston.
Lara Trump, who is married to former president Eric Trump’s daughter, was voted co-chair.
“The RNC will be at the forefront of a movement that will work tirelessly every single day to elect our nominee, Donald J. Trump, as the 47th president of the United States,” Whatley told RNC members at a speech after being elected.
WHO IS THE NEW TRUMP-BACKED RNC CHAIRMAN MICHAEL WHATLEY?
Michael Whatley speaks during the state Republican Party Convention on June 10, 2023, in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Robert Willett/The News & Observer/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Lara Trump is expected to focus more on fundraising and media appearances. He emphasized that shortly after he was voted in, taking time out of his inaugural speech as co-chair to hold up a check for $100,000 he said was contributed that day to the party.
The next head of the RNC will be Chris LaCivita, who will take on the role of the committee’s chief of staff while keeping his job as one of the two top advisers to the Trump campaign.
McDaniel was handpicked by Trump to lead the committee seven years ago, but he has fallen out of favor with Trump’s MAGA movement following GOP losses over the past few years. He mentioned that in his farewell speech on Friday, telling members that he was most concerned about “internal unity” heading into the election.
“We need to stop attacking other Republicans,” he said. “If we spend our time attacking each other, we guarantee that the Democrats will win.”
Ronna McDaniel gave her final speech as RNC chairwoman at the spring meeting on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Houston. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke)
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She also told the party that it needs to engage independent and swing voters, warning: “We will not win if we just talk.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
