Campaign

RNC chair says election results will be accepted ‘when the process is played out’

by Zach Schonfeld - 11/06/22 10:24 AM ET

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel gives remarks to a packed room at the opening of the RNC’s new Hispanic Community Center in Suwanee, Ga., on Wednesday, June 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Sunday suggested GOP candidates will ultimately accept the results of this week’s midterm elections.

“When the process is played out and the votes are canvassed and certified — every one of your Republican candidates will accept their results, even if they lose?” co-anchor Dana Bash asked McDaniel on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“They will,” McDaniel responded, also indicating she believes Republicans will take control of the House and Senate.

The exchange came moments after Bash played a clip of Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.) responding to a reporter who asked the vulnerable incumbent senator if he would concede if the tabulations show he lost.

“I sure hope I can, but I can’t predict what the Democrats might have planned,” Johnson responded.

Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake has also declined to say if she would accept the election results on multiple occasions, including during an interview with Bash last month.

“You should have a recount,” McDaniel told Bash on Sunday. “You should have a canvass, and it’ll go to the courts, and then everybody should accept the results. That’s what it should be. But I’m also not going to say if there’s problems that we shouldn’t be able to address that.”

McDaniel went on to criticize Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams for refusing to concede following her 2018 loss to Gov. Brian Kemp. Abrams and Kemp are set to face off in a rematch on Tuesday.

“I think Ron Johnson and Stacey Abrams in the end, once all their avenues are exhausted, they’ll accept the results,” McDaniel told Bash.

Abrams has looked to differentiate herself from former President Trump’s unfounded claims of election fraud in 2020, noting that she acknowledged Kemp would be certified as governor. But Abrams in the months following the election continued to say “I won” and “the system is rigged.”

“Here’s what the Democrats are: they’re inflation deniers, they are crime deniers, they’re education deniers,” McDaniel said on CNN. “This is not what the American people are talking about.”