Ronna McDaniel, the RNC’s top official, plans to resign on March 8

The chair of the Republican National Committee said Monday she would resign in just over a week as former President Donald J. Trump looks to install a new hand-picked leader for the national party ahead of this fall’s general election.

The decision is no surprise. Its chair, Ronna McDaniel, told Mr. Trump weeks ago that she planned to leave shortly after the South Carolina primary, which was held on Saturday. But she is now setting up new elections within the party’s official body, in which Trump’s preferred chair and co-chair will try to secure enough votes to take power.

Mr. Trump has publicly endorsed Michael Whatley, the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party and the general counsel of the national committee, to replace Ms. McDaniel. And he has said he wants his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to be the next co-chair.

Mr. Trump’s comments about the RNC’s leadership came ahead of Saturday’s South Carolina primary and in anticipation of him tightening his grip on the party. Ultimately, he defeated his main rival, former Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina, by more than 20 points in her home state.

“I have decided to step aside during our spring training on March 8 in Houston so that our nominee can select a seat of his choosing,” Ms. McDaniel said in a statement to The New York Times. “The RNC has historically undergone changes once we had a nominee, and it has always been my intention to honor that tradition. I remain committed to winning back the White House and electing Republicans in the November elections.”

Ms. McDaniel, the first woman to chair the RNC, thanked Mr. Trump and other Republicans for their support. She was chair of the Republican Party in Michigan and became leader of the national committee in 2017 after Trump won the state in the 2016 election.

Ms. McDaniel called it “the honor of a lifetime” to serve in this role and talked about her accomplishments during her term, including focusing on early voting and creating an election integrity unit after the 2020 election.

That unit focuses on an issue that Mr. Trump and his associates want to raise in the 2024 general election, despite the fact that there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election and that Mr. Trump’s allies have dozens of lawsuits involving related to those elections. He has made it clear that he wants the RNC to do more on election integrity.

Mr. Trump and his advisers have also raised concerns about the committee’s financial pressure, though some of his allies privately acknowledge that Mr. Trump has made that task more difficult over time. The RNC reported raising $12 million in January, while the Trump campaign raised just under $9 million.

A key element of Ms. McDaniel’s tenure that her allies point to is that under her leadership the RNC has not faced criminal charges or the kind of sweeping legal actions that have kept Mr. Trump and the supporters who helped him try to to remain in power, were lured into a trap. power after losing the 2020 election to President Biden.

RNC officials allowed two of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, to use their headquarters to host a news conference where the lawyers made wild and false claims about voting systems in late November 2020, but party officials did not attend part. event. They also did not get involved in most of the legal efforts Mr. Giuliani advocated.

And although both Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell were sued by Dominion Voting Systems over their baseless claims about the company’s machines, and Fox News faced a huge settlement over defamation claims, the commission was not involved.

Ms. McDaniel has rarely been publicly targeted by Mr. Trump, and he referred to her as a “friend” in a social media post after they had a lengthy meeting two weeks ago ahead of her expected departure.

Ms. McDaniel was overwhelmingly re-elected for another term last year. It has been many years since a party chairman left office during an election year.

For months, Ms. McDaniel was the subject of an intense pressure campaign from some of Trump’s most outspoken allies in the right-wing news media ecosystem to force her out of office. They focused their frustrations about the party’s performance in 2022 not on the former president and the candidates he supported, but on the party chairman.

For his part, Mr. Trump has repeatedly pressed Ms. McDaniel to cancel the primary debates and occasionally, according to people familiar with the discussions, the primaries themselves. She resisted his attempt to cancel the debates and did not have the power to cancel the caucuses and primaries, which are run by the states and state parties.

Criticism of her performance from some Trump allies was met by praise for her work from several Republican officials who issued statements through the RNC, including Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, the chairman of the Senate Republican campaign arm, and Rep. Richard Hudson of the Senate Republican campaign arm. North Carolina, the chairman of the Republican campaign arm of the House of Representatives.

Kevin McCarthy, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives who was recently forced out of his seat by far-right members of his caucus, described her as a “strong leader” and said she was “instrumental in regaining the majority in the House of Representatives” after she lost it. in 2018.

“Her leadership in the party helped expand the electoral map and supported candidates who are now rising stars,” Mr. McCarthy said.