Chad Selweski covered state and regional politics for The Macomb Daily for nearly 30 years. He contributes to Deadline Detroit and blogs at Politically Speaking.
By Chad Selweski
Five years ago, Ronna Romney McDaniel had no involvement in politics, despite her famous family, and was working in the public relations business.
But when her uncle, Mitt Romney, made a run for the presidency Romney McDaniel became a key figure in his Michigan campaign. After Mitt’s 2012 loss, Romney McDaniel, now 43, turned her newfound activism into a seat on the Republican National Committee, quite a leap on the leadership ladder. Then in February 2015, she won her bid for the state party chairmanship in February 2015 with 55 percent of the GOP State Committee vote in a three-person field.
A little more than a year later she emerged as a solidifying force for Donald Trump as he sought to prevent a divided Republican National Convention in July.
Ronna Romney McDaniel and Uncle Mitt
In November, Romney McDaniel received considerable credit for turning Michigan red by the narrowest of margins as Trump unexpectedly carried the state, marking the first GOP presidential win in the Great Lakes State in nearly 30 years.
In contrast, Mitt Romney’s path over the past five years has taken a very different turn. After his 2012 election loss was blamed by agitated Republican stalwarts on a weak candidacy and an ineffective campaign, the former Massachusetts governor adopted a low profile. When the GOP faced a sharply divided field of 17 White House candidates in 2015, Romney’s name emerged in some party circles as someone who could play the role of a unifying nominee.
But memories of 2012, when many Republican activists appeared certain Barack Obama would become a one-term president, quickly scuttled the speculation of Romney entering the 2016 race.
In March, as Trump maintained his frontrunner role and the Michigan primary approached, Romney delivered a blistering speech, calling the reality TV star a con man who would drag down the entire party.
An Eye Poke
Fast forward to Wednesday (Dec. 14) and Romney McDaniel was named by Trump as the choice for Republican National Committee chair while her uncle simultaneously had been brushed aside by the president-elect as the possible secretary of state in the new administration.
With Trump heaping praise on Romney McDaniel, the press release announcing her as the selection for RNC chief notably referred to the Michigan party chair throughout as McDaniel, not Romney McDaniel, as she has been known for years. The name Romney appears nowhere in the release from the Trump team.
The clear implication is that the president-elect never seriously contemplated making Mitt his secretary of state and was instead just trying to torture him through weeks of a phony courting process.
That turn of events could mark the culmination of Romney family tensions over the past several months due to the gaping divide between Mitt and his niece. But that assumes the Romney family is as “tight knit” as it is portrayed by certain GOP activists.
Romney McDaniel is the granddaughter of George Romney, three-term governor of Michigan, 1968 presidential candidate and a member of the Nixon Cabinet. All of those accolades for George came before Romney McDaniel was born.
She is also the daughter of Mitt’s brother, Scott, who was considered the clear frontrunner for Michigan attorney general in 1998 but lost the GOP nomination. Her mother, Ronna Romney, Scott’s ex-wife, ran for U.S. Senate in 1994 but lost the Republican primary in part because George, her father-in-law, endorsed her winning opponent, Spence Abraham. She ran again two years later, secured the nomination, and lost to Democratic incumbent Sen. Carl Levin.
No Political Role for Nearly 40 Years
Romney McDaniel, who was a twentysomething during her parents’ election forays, has worked as a production manager for the SRCP Media company and in manager positions for a production company and a temp-worker service.
It is rather striking that her sudden emergence as the potential national party leader seemed to focus little on her relative inexperience in politics of any kind but instead became entangled in a Trump transition team power struggle.
Several news organization have reported that key forces butted heads over the RNC top post as outgoing party chairman Reince Priebus, Trump’s selection for White House chief of staff, backed Romney McDaniel because of her previous ties to RNC activities. But Vice President-elect Mike Pence, key Trump aide Steve Bannon and campaign manager Kellyanne Conway demanded an outsider -- Nick Ayers of Georgia, a Pence political adviser.
Others on Team Trump reportedly favored a woman (to patch up the gender weak spot for the president-elect) and someone from the Midwest, the region that had delivered Trump the presidency.
RNC members hailed Romney McDaniel for remaining loyal to Trump despite the divide with Mitt, other family members and key Michigan GOP operatives.
Throughout much of the primary season, Romney McDaniel barely hid her admiration for the Trump campaign’s success. She pledged as a Trump delegate for the national convention a month before the New York billionaire clinched the nomination, based on Trump’s win in Michigan.
At a late stage in the general election campaign, in mid-October, Romney McDaniel took the unusual step of very publicly ousting Wendy Day, the state GOP’s grassroots vice chair, based on complaints from party apparatchiks that she declined to publicly back the party nominee.
Last week, when Trump made a stop on his “victory tour” in Grand Rapids, he hinted at his choice of Romney McDaniel as party leader using typically bombastic language praising her loyalty.
“Ronna McDaniel, what a great job you and your people have done,” Trump told the audience at the Deltaplex Arena. “I was very impressed with you. She didn’t sleep for six months.”
