Two weeks after Nikki Haley dropped out of the Republican presidential primary, Donald Trump quickly moved to stack the Republican National Committee (RNC) with his own leadership.
The former president’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, and North Carolina GOP Chair Michael Whatley took over as co-chairs, while senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita was named chief of staff. But the changes didn’t stop there — election integrity staff were asked to reapply for their positions while the unit got a new leader of its grassroots operation: Christina Bobb.
A former One America News anchor and lawyer for Trump, Bobb was named senior counsel to the RNC’s election integrity team following the takeover by the campaign. With less than five months before the 2024 election, Bobb has gotten right to work to fill in what she described as “gaps” in the previous RNC leadership’s election integrity strategy. (RELATED: ‘Rigged’: Death Of The American Voter | WATCH NOW)
“What the grassroots have been complaining about, and people who were crying out to the Trump campaign were saying, ‘Hey, we’re trying to get involved and we’re having a hard time getting involved. What do we need to do?’ So that’s my top priority, making sure people who want to be involved have a way to get involved in what we’re doing, whether it’s directly with the RNC, or more likely with the state parties,” Bobb told the Caller.
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Sunset Park in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 9, 2024. Thousands of Donald Trump supporters rallied in baking heat Sunday to cheer on the Republican presidential candidate in Nevada, a key battleground state for the US election in November. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Since starting at the RNC, Bobb’s sole focus has been at the grassroots level, while other staffers continue their work on the litigation side. Part of the grassroots push is the party’s “Protect the Vote” initiative, which helps people across the country sign up to be credentialed to help as poll workers, challengers or observers.
On the site’s front page, a handful of states’ sign-ups are featured, including Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Volunteers can indicate if they are interested in being a poll watcher, poll worker or working in another role. Signees are also asked if the are a lawyer or a law student.
The RNC announced Monday their “Protect the Vote” tour, which will “rally voters for President Trump and train volunteers” as members of the party travel to Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia.
“We want to make sure that we can credential as many people as want to be credentialed and get as many people on the shift, as many have time and availability to do it. So that that’s the main focus from the RNC, is making sure that people are going to protect the vote to make sure they’re going through the RNC process,” Bobb told the Caller.
“And of course, working with state parties, it filters down to state parties they are all a part of this as well. And then the state parties ideally have their own operations as well. So I just want to make sure it’s as robust as possible,” Bobb added.
In a similar vein, Team Trump and the RNC launched “Trump Force 47,” an organization focused on mobilizing grassroots supporters ahead of the election. The site asks signees if they want to help with a variety of initiatives, such as calling targeted voters and outreach, poll watching and hosting a “Trump House Party.”
By November, Bobb hopes to have droves of volunteers across the country ready to be poll watchers and workers. The closer the election gets, the more that election-day operations take precedent over litigation, Bobb told the Caller.
“I want to have a massive red wave of volunteers, of workers, of people who actually work in their county. I don’t want this to be another election where we’re like, oh, ‘Democrats stole it again.’ We have to have more people than we have ever had working the election. It’s not enough to just vote, it’s not enough to send in a donation. I’m so grateful for people that are donating by all means, please, we need the support,” Bobb told the Caller.
“But more than that we need the people, whether if you have an hour that you can give, if you have a couple of weeks you can give, whatever time you can give to be a part of this process. We absolutely need you,” she added.
The RNC holds weekly trainings for volunteers in an effort to ensure that “every legal vote is counted this election,” Danielle Alvarez, RNC and Trump campaign spokeswoman, told the Caller. In addition to filling in the grassroots gaps, the new leadership from Trump’s camp at the RNC has worked to gin up voter turnout in 2024, she added.
Directions on how to vote in a voting booth at the Highland Recreation Center on March 5, 2024 in Denver, Colorado. 15 States and one U.S. Territory hold their primary elections on Super Tuesday, awarding more delegates than any other day in the presidential nominating calendar. (Photo by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)
While Bobb continues to work on the RNC’s grassroots strategy, the party is relying on her to be the “spokesperson” of the operation to help communicate and work with local activists, Alvarez told the Caller.
“Christina Bobb’s role is twofold — she is senior counsel and spokesperson activating grassroots for the election integrity program. She has so much credibility on the election integrity issue with the grassroots and is able to deliver this message effectively,” Alvarez told the Caller.
“[She] works with the activists and the folks locally and is a critical pipeline of communication working with the experts on the ground. This bolsters our aggressive election integrity operations in battleground states,” Alvarez added.
While the Trump take over of the RNC came with several personnel changes, Bobb’s hiring came under particular scrutiny.
Democrats and their media allies alike rushed to criticize the move by the GOP. The New Republic wrote that the hire “ought to scare” Americans. MSNBC called it an “odd choice.”
“As far as what the left thinks about me – you mean the same outlets that lied to us about Hunter Biden’s laptop? The 51 intelligence officials? Joe Biden’s foreign income? Cocaine in the White House? The Russia Hoax? The Ukraine Hoax? The Steele Dossier? The FBI’s involvement in the ‘insurance policy’? The Biden White House’s involvement in censoring free speech? The Biden White House’s involvement in dictating content to social media companies?” Bobb said. “I couldn’t care less what they say about me, or anything else.”
And despite what the critics have to say, several legal onlookers are impressed with what they’ve seen coming out of the RNC following the leadership change.
“I have seen, with Trump and his folks they have brought in, they’re putting a super emphasis [on election integrity]. It went from an emphasis to a super emphasis on getting involved in the litigation, helping to defend the election reforms that states have passed, and actually going after some of the other states that are trying to do things that are not good, like states that refuse to clean up their voter rolls like in Michigan,” Hans Von Spakovsky, the manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative, told the Caller, adding that the party is putting more into the grassroots operation than he has ever seen.
A voting booth at a polling location on November 8, 2022 in Clemmons, North Carolina, United States. After months of candidates campaigning, Americans are voting in the midterm elections to decide close races across the nation. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
The RNC has filed numerous lawsuits since the leadership change, but Von Spakovsky pointed to the litigation the party has filed surrounding states’ voter rolls. In Michigan, the RNC sued the secretary of state, alleging that they failed to abide by the National Voter Registration Act’s requirement that voter rolls must keep “clean and accurate voter registration records.” The party filed a similar lawsuit in Nevada over its handling of the voter rolls.
“The Trump campaign and the RNC are much better prepared this time, and while there’s a lot of work to be done, they’ve done a very good job of hiring the right team and devoting the right resources to ensure that Biden doesn’t steal the election again,” Mike Davis, a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and founder of the Article 3 Project, told the Caller, adding that the grassroots effort has made great progress.
Before the leadership change, Davis, alongside other election integrity advocates, expressed concerns about the right’s efforts on election preparation. In March, a Daily Caller analysis found that a number of key battleground states, including those that delivered Biden the presidency, were poised to use many of the election procedures in 2024 that outraged Republicans in 2020.
When it comes to that grassroots operation, Whatley previously said the goal is to have 100,000 people as poll workers on election day.
“The President chose Chairman Michael Whatley because of what he has done for election integrity and what he did in North Carolina. I’ve heard Chairman Whatley say that in conversations he has with the President, the President will ask ‘how’s it playing?’ and the Chairman will say something to the effect of, ‘Sir, we’re going to turn out the vote and we’re going to protect the vote.’ And the President responds, ‘I’ll turn out the vote, you protect the vote,'” Alvarez told the Caller.
“It is President Trump’s number one priority, and it will live year-round at the RNC,” she added.
