RNC Chair Whatley Vows to Be ‘Tip of the Spear’ to Protect Trump After En route to Re-Election Victory

The members of the Republican National Committee on Friday, in a vote that was never in doubt, re-elected Chairman Michael Whatley to continue to run the National Party Committee.

“This organization has to be the tip of the spear. And as your chairman, I promise that this organization will be the tip of the spear to protect Donald Trump,” Whatley said, speaking after the unanimous vote at the RNC’s annual meeting, which was held this year in the nation’s capital ahead of Monday’s inauguration of President-elect Trump.

Whatley, a longtime Trump ally and a big supporter of Trump’s election integrity efforts who served as RNC general counsel and chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, was named by Trump last March as chairman when the former president struck for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024. Whatley succeeded longtime RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who Trump no longer endorsed.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital on the sidelines of the RNC’s winter meeting, Whatley says his job going forward in the 2025 election and 2026 midterms is straightforward.

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“It’s really critical for us to make sure that Trump voters become Republican voters,” Whatley told Fox News Digital on the sidelines of the RNC’s winter meeting, which is being held in the nation’s capital.

Republicans enjoyed major victories in the November election, which Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to win back the White House, the GOP wrests control of the Senate from the Democrats and clings to their razor-thin majority in the House.

Interviewed Thursday on the eve of the formal vote on the chairmanship of the RNC, Whatley said the GOP needs to “cement the gains” made in the 2024 election.

“We’re going to go right back to the building blocks we had during this election cycle, which is get out the vote and protect the ballot,” Whatley stressed.

The RNC chairman pointed to “lessons we learned” in the 2024 cycle “about going after low-propensity voters, about making sure we reach all voters and bringing in new communities,” which he said helped Republicans make “historic gains among African American voters, among Asian American voters, among Hispanic voters, young voters and women voters.”

Speaking a few days before the president-elect’s inauguration, Whatley stressed that once Trump is in the White House, “we’re going to go back to the RNC. We’re going to roll up our sleeves and get going. We’ve got a couple of gubernatorial races… which we shall work on in ’25.”

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But Whatley said “everything is focused on ’26,” when the party will defend its House and Senate majorities, “because that will determine, from an agenda perspective, whether we have two years to work with or four. And America needs , that we have a four-year agenda.”

“What we need to do is make sure we register voters,” he said. “We’re going to…communicate with the people that we’re going to show up to.”

Referring to the 2024 presidential election, Whatley said, “it’s the same basic principles.”

But he noted that “it’s not just seven states on the battlefield” and that the 2026 contests “will certainly be a very intense midterm election cycle.”

While Democrats would disagree, Whatley described today’s GOP as “a party of common sense… this is a party that will fight for every American family and for every American community.”

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Referring to former Democrats Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and former representative Tulsi Gabbard, whom Trump has nominated to serve in his second administration’s cabinet, Whatley touted “the fact that we have two former Democratic presidential candidates to serve in the president’s cabinet shows you that this is a healthy common sense agenda, a common sense team that we will move forward with.”

In December, Trump asked Whatley to continue in the 2026 cycle as RNC chair.

“I think we’ll be able to talk when we need to talk,” Whatley said when asked if his lines of communication with Trump will be limited now that the president-elect is returning to It White House. “We will support the president and his agenda. That doesn’t change. What changes is his ability from the White House to actually implement the agenda that he campaigned on.”

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The winter meeting included the final appearance at the RNC by co-chair Lara Trump. The newly elected president’s daughter-in-law resigns from her post.

She emphasized that it is critical that the RNC take “the opportunity that voters have given us” to “continue to expand the Republican brand.”

The elder Trump is term-limited and will not be able to seek re-election in 2028. Vice President-elect JD Vance is likely to be considered the front-runner for the 2028 GOP nomination.

Whatley repeated what he told Fox News Digital in December — that the RNC will remain neutral in the next race for the GOP nomination and that the party “has a great bench.”

“You think about the talent on the Republican side of the aisle right now, our governors, our senators, our members of Congress, people who are going to serve in this administration. I love the fact that the Republican Party is being set up to have a great candidate going into ’28,” he highlighted.

Unlike the DNC, which in the 2024 cycle upped the traditional presidential nominating calendar, The RNC made no major changes to their primary lineup, keeping the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary as their first two contests.

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Asked about the 2028 calendar, Whatley reiterated to Fox News that “I haven’t had any conversations with anyone who wants to change the calendar, so we’ll wait and see what that looks like as we go forward. We’re at the RNC meetings this week and have a number of conversations with people, but it’s not a big push.”

“I don’t think changing the calendar really helped the Democrats at all,” Whatley argued. “And I think it’s going to be critical that we make sure that we work with our system as we always have.”