Conservative influencers are demanding a change in leadership at the Republican National Committee after another disappointing night at the ballot box for Republicans

The editor in chief of a conservative news site, Just the News, John Solomon, the one-time top editor of the Washington Times, is calling on President Trump to oust the RNC chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel.

In a conversation with a one-time advisor to Mr. Trump, Steve Bannon, Mr. Solomon called on Ms. McDaniel to quit her post, saying, “Republicans keep giving Ronna McDaniel a promotion,” adding that “you’ve got to do something dramatic and I think that starts at the RNC.”

“I keep watching this extraordinary dynamic play out,” Mr. Solomon said. “You win by candidates, messaging, money, and get out the vote, and Republicans are losing on all four grounds.”

Another conservative commentator, Benny Johnson, said that Republicans and conservatives “suffered humiliating losses in deep red states Ohio and Kentucky.”

“Republicans are sick of Ronna McDaniel using the same losing strategy for six years in a row,” Mr. Johnson said. “If Ronna won’t resign, she needs to be removed.”

Other commentators that cater to the GOP’s more fringe constituents on the right, like attorney Rogan O’Handley, also called on Mr. Trump to oust Ms. McDaniel.

“If Matt Gaetz can vacate Kevin McCarthy, I think it’s time for President Trump to vacate Ronna McDaniel,” Mr. O’Handley said. “Only he has the power to do it at this point.”

The Gateway Pundit, a self-described “online news publication consisting of news, commentary and analysis” catering to a conservative audience, also called on Ms. McDaniel to resign.

“Totally useless @GOPChairwoman Ronna McDaniel should resign following tonight’s general election results,” the group said in a tweet. “She has done nothing to this day to secure our elections from voter fraud, registration fraud, and mail-in ballot fraud.”

The Republican influencers are blaming Ms. McDaniel for the party’s poor performance in the 2023 elections, a redux of underperformances in 2018, 2020, and 2022.

In Tuesday’s election, Republicans were routed in Kentucky and Virginia, with a Democrat, Governor Beshear, winning re-election in a squarely conservative state, and Democrats retaining control of the state senate in Virginia and winning a majority in the state house of delegates.

Ahead of the elections, Republicans had been hoping to leverage President Biden’s low approval rating and general dissatisfaction with the direction of the country into state-level wins.

Yet even at states like New Jersey, where Democrats have maintained control of the legislature for two decades, Democrats were able to make gains at the state level.

Republicans were also defeated in Ohio, where voters overwhelmingly approved a measure to establish the constitutional right to an abortion and to legalize cannabis.

A political scientist at John Jay College, Brian Arbour, tells the Sun that last night’s election results were, in large part, a “reaction against Dobbs,” adding that “it’s interesting how long it’s lasted.”

He compared the reaction against Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to the reaction against the Affordable Care Act, which cost Democrats in the 2010 midterms. The issue had lost potency, though, by the 2012 presidential election, whereas the Dobbs reaction is so far front and center. 

Mr. Arbour did say that Republicans seem to be making a strategic mistake by focusing their campaigns around hot button cultural issues instead of criticizing Democrats for the state of the economy.

“It’s not clear to me that Republicans are talking enough about the economy,” Mr. Arbour says. “While there’s plenty of economic data that the economy is going well the polling data shows something else — it feels to me like Republicans should be hammering that more.”

Mr. Arbour says economic messaging has broader appeal — reaching both the GOP base and swing voters — whereas focusing on cultural priorities and policies like abortion can alienate moderate voters.

“I think where Democrats are winning is in convincing people that Republicans are weird, strange, and odd,” Mr. Arbour tells the Sun. “Democrats are winning on normalcy right now.”