Lara Trump is in the political spotlight after her father-in-law Donald Trump tapped her to be co-chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC).
She is no stranger to politics, having served as one of the former president’s most high-profile surrogates. She was also the subject of speculation that she would launch a bid for North Carolina’s Senate seat in 2022.
The move reflects the former president’s desire to have loyalists within the party, which has raised alarms among Trump’s critics.
“Everybody likes to keep loyalists around. Trump just tends to take it to sort of unprecedented levels,” said Doug Heye, a former spokesperson for the RNC.
Before getting involved with her father-in-law’s presidential runs, Lara Trump worked as a producer for the television news magazine “Inside Edition.” She later used her television experience to host and produce the weekly pro-Trump webcast “Real News Update” during the Trump administration.
In 2020, she was a top adviser to the former president’s reelection campaign and launched the Women for Trump campaign to galvanize female support for the president. She was later named a Fox News contributor in 2021.
“She’s gradually risen within Trump World, and she is someone who the president sees as an effective communicator and an ambassador for him when he cannot be somewhere,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist. “She’s earned that trust and that’s why you’re hearing her name for co-chair.”
In addition to publicly backing his daughter as co-chair, Trump announced he was backing Michael Whatley for RNC chair. The former president praised Whately, who has been a vocal supporter of Trump’s unfounded voting fraud claims, for being “committed to election integrity.” Trump also said he asked his senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita to serve as the committee’s chief operating officer.
The development comes after The New York Times reported that the current chair, Ronna McDaniel, is expected to resign following the South Carolina primary later this month. Trump is widely predicted to win that primary, with polls showing him leading Nikki Haley by more than 30 points. The expected victory will further cement Trump’s role as the runaway favorite to secure the nomination going into what is expected to be a contentious general election.
McDaniel has been chair of the RNC since 2017, despite Republicans seeing underwhelming performances in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections.
“The Trump team knows this is going to be a close election, and the RNC needs to be up to snuff to meet the moment, especially when it comes to field operations and fundraising,” O’Connell said.
While an RNC led by Whatley and Lara Trump would signify a full-Trump takeover of the party apparatus, some say it’s unclear what the pecking order would be.
“What we don’t know is what would the structure of the RNC look like, because it’s sort of being defined right now as her and Whatley being co-chairs together, and it’s not clear what that means, what is the breakdown of responsibilities, and so forth,” Heye said.
With McDaniel currently at the helm of the RNC, Drew McKissick, who also serves as the chair of South Carolina’s Republican Party, serves as co-chair.
“Typically there is a chair and below them is what’s called a co-chair, but it’s not two co-chairs,” Heye said. “It’s just not clear how that structure is going to develop.”
Republicans say the unsurprising move is Trump’s attempt to streamline the RNC operation with his campaign operation.
“One of the things that I think frustrates the Trump team, and it’s frustrated previous GOP Republican presidential nominees … is how siloed the RNC can be and how sometimes they may be doing something different from what you want them to do,” O’Connell said.
“When you have a nominee and you’re the party out of power, it is hard to streamline the two together and become a lean, mean, fighting machine all at once,” he continued. “Trump has already recognized that from 2016, so now he’s going to make sure this is not a problem when he officially becomes the nominee.”
The president’s daughter-in-law has already telegraphed what her vision for the committee is going to be.
“The RNC needs to be the leanest, most lethal political fighting machine we’ve ever seen in American history,” Lara Trump said in an interview on Newsmax.
“That is the goal over the next nine-and-a-half months. If I am elected to this position, I can assure you, there will not be any more $70,000 — or whatever exorbitant amount of money it was — spent on flowers,” she continued. “Every single penny will go to the No. 1 and the only job of the RNC: That is electing Donald J. Trump as president of the United States and saving this country.”
While her comments made headlines, strategists say they are in line with what to expect in a presidential year.
“That’s the job,” Heye said. “The job of the RNC is to elect the nominee. And work with states to do that and victory funding and so forth.”
Given her role in launching Women for Trump and being arguably the most prominent female face of the campaign, Lara Trump is largely seen as an asset in appealing to that voting bloc as well. Women voters, particularly suburban women voters, will play a deciding factor in the presidential election.
“You need someone who can go in there and be a surrogate, connection point, whatever you want to say, for a group that you need to win over,” one Republican strategist said. “We are talking about margins. [Former President Trump] obviously feels comfortable that she did a good job last time and she can do a good job this time.”
