Donald Trump’s campaign manager and deputy campaign manager, Mitt Romney’s niece, and a host of other GOP officials are all in the running to become the next chair of a Republican Party that is at the peak of its power.

Reince Priebus, the outgoing chairman of the Republican National Committee and Trump’s incoming chief of staff, is expected to have an outsize voice in picking his successor, even though incoming presidents typically choose their preferred party chairman.


People close to Priebus say he would not have left the RNC – which he helmed for a record six years – if it risked falling into the hands of someone he opposed, such as former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

Among the names most under discussion for party chairman are David Bossie, who served as Trump’s deputy campaign manager and is an RNC member; Priebus ally Matt Pinnell, the RNC’s liaison to state parties; and Ronna Romney McDaniel, the chair of the Michigan Republican Party and niece of 2012 nominee Mitt Romney. She bucked her uncle in backing the nominee this year — even penning a November op-ed in the Deseret News in Utah — winning the appreciation of Trump, who has been heard calling her “my Romney.”

Trump’s selection of the next RNC chair, while not as immediately impactful as his cabinet choices, will set the long-term direction of a party for whom he became the unlikeliest of standard-bearers earlier this year.

Of the group, Trump knows Bossie the best. He joined the campaign in tandem with Kellyanne Conway and became deputy campaign manager in August, helping lead the team that guided Trump to his shock win last week. Bossie earned enough of Trump’s trust to have been granted spending authority, a sign of faith from the billionaire first-time candidate. Bossie would give Trump a populist ally to carry his message inside the party’s First Street corridors.

But party insiders see Bossie setting his sights higher — perhaps the role of White House political director, a behind-the-scenes post with a direct line to Trump, and a position where he could be delivering orders to the next RNC chair.

A wild-card pick that members are discussing among themselves could be Conway — a constant presence on television who Trump trusts fully and who could continue to operate her polling business while running the party, something she would have to give up if she joined the administration.

One influential RNC member said picking Conway would give the party a “woman chairman” who “knows how to run a campaign” and that “she’s known and liked by most of the members and she’s done work in lots of the states.”

Other names that are circulating include Pence adviser Nick Ayers, who worked on Priebus’ transition to run the RNC six years ago; Matt Moore, one of the youngest party chairs in the nation in South Carolina; John Whitbeck, the Virginia GOP chair; and Joe Nosef, the Mississippi GOP chair.

Priebus’ acceptance of the chief of staff post bodes ill for Lewandowski, who has clashed with the establishment wing of the party and would roil Priebus’s lieutenants who will remain on the committee. Several members and RNC allies said Trump could ultimately name whoever he wants into the post — even Lewandowski — and that that person would ultimately be ratified by the 168-members of the RNC. California RNC Committeeman Shawn Steel said Trump’s choice would be “widely accepted without dissent by the membership.”

But a source familiar with the RNC’s inner workings said picking Lewandowski would prove “messy.”

Trump and his transition team are, for now, more focused on filling out the top posts in the West Wing and cabinet-level officials than the RNC. Priebus will continue to run the committee until Trump takes the oath of office, meaning a vacancy is still more than two months away.

On a conference call with RNC members on Monday evening, Priebus urged patience. But among RNC insiders, the politicking is underway.

Arizona GOP chairman Robert Graham has courted Trump’s favor, and Georgia RNC Committeeman Randy Evans, an ally of Newt Gingrich who helped whip pro-Trump delegates at the national convention in July, is eyeing the position as well. Ned Ryun, who runs the conservative group American Majority, declared himself a candidate for chairman even before the election — a race that was largely predicated on Trump losing. He is neither a current RNC member nor personally close with Trump, making him a longer shot.

Other prospects once mentioned for the post — like Ohio GOP chairman Matt Borges and former Trump rival Carly Fiorina, who have clashed with Trump — appear to have little window to advance now.

Graham said he spoke to Trump on election night and said he hopes to be in the mix. He told POLITICO that the work of the RNC should turn to broadening its base in minority communities – especially in states like Arizona where the Hispanic population is surging.

“The ultimate mission from today going forward has to be not just planning for reelection but fulfilling the promise to making the party bigger and more inclusive as it relates to minority communities,” he said. “This is a golden opportunity to hit the refresh button.”

Graham credited Priebus for bringing the party “back from the ashes” when he took over in 2011. But he has collided with Priebus privately, especially with his semi-open pursuit of the chairmanship this summer and fall as Priebus weighed running for an unprecedented fourth two-year term.

“I’ll support whatever President Trump wants,” Graham said. “Period.”

Pinnell, who is a former chair of the Oklahoma Republican Party and is currently an aide to Preibus, would be a more seamless and technocratic pick, having worked with the RNC members both as peer and as staff. And, though they’ve met, he and Trump have virtually no relationship, which works against Pinnell when Trump so strongly prefers people with whom he has a history.

Consideration of Romney McDaniel is the most intriguing – and not only because her uncle became one of Trump’s highest-profile Republican detractors all year. She’d be the second woman to run the RNC and the first since Mary Louise Smith in 1974. She also helped lead Trump to an apparent victory in Michigan (the state still hasn’t been called, but Trump led by 11,000 votes with nearly all precincts reporting), a state that hasn’t gone to a Republican since 1984.

“I think this is a unique opportunity where we have a chairman who actually has won a blue-collar, Reagan Democrat state,” said Saul Anuzis, a former RNC committeeman from Michigan. “I think that Michigan and Michigan voters represent the new Republican coalition, the new Trump coalition around the country.”

Steel, the California RNC committeeman, said he expected that whoever Trump picks will ultimately be tasked with fulfilling Priebus’s vision – from building a “massive field organization year-round” to maintaining the party’s digital operation and renewing its focus on broadening the GOP electorate in minority communities.

“It’s going to be a full blown expression of what Reince Priebus started building when he became chairman,” he said.

Pinnell, Bossie and Romney McDaniel all declined to comment for this story.