[2] McDaniel and the RNC made claims of voter fraud after Joe Biden's 2020 election victory, which Trump refused to concede[4] and attempted to overturn.

[5] In 2022, McDaniel orchestrated a censure of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, two Republicans who were on the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

[6][7] On February 26, 2024, McDaniel announced her resignation as RNC chair on advice from Donald Trump following his victory in the 2024 South Carolina Republican presidential primary.

[13] She attended Lahser High School in Bloomfield Township, Oakland County, Michigan,[12] and earned an undergraduate degree in English from Brigham Young University.

McDaniel had activist Wendy Day removed from her party position as grassroots vice-chair due to her refusal to support Trump.

[28][29] On January 27, 2023, McDaniel was re-elected to stand as the Chair for the RNC going into the 2024 U.S. presidential election, fending off challenges from Harmeet Dhillon and Mike Lindell and winning a fourth term.

After her victory, McDaniel stated that she would not seek a fifth term as RNC Chair[30][31][32][33] and further announced she would resign on advice from Donald Trump after he won the 2024 South Carolina Republican presidential primary.

[36] After many white suburban female voters switched to vote for Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, McDaniel said that the party would engage in a "deep data dive" to learn why.

[39][40] Following the backlash, she apologized for not communicating the initiative prior to the announcement and clarified that the Pride Coalition does not change the GOP's platform on same-sex marriage.

[47] Politico reported that after Trump endorsed Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore just days before the special Alabama Senate election, the White House influenced McDaniel to resume RNC funding for Moore, who lost in a narrow election to Democrat Doug Jones in December 2017.

McDaniel was reportedly shocked by Trump's decision to endorse Moore but felt that she had little choice but to follow the president's wishes.

[48] In January 2019, Mitt Romney penned an editorial for The Washington Post criticizing President Trump's moral character.

McDaniel said the editorial by her uncle, "an incoming Republican freshman senator", "feeds into what the Democrats and mainstream media want" and was "disappointing and unproductive".

"[53] By November 2021, the RNC was still covering the legal fees for former president Trump related to investigations into his financial practices in New York.

[54] By May 2020, the RNC had allocated $20 million to oppose Democratic lawsuits to make voting easier during the coronavirus pandemic, in particular expanding vote-by-mail to states that had not adopted it previously.

[57][56] McDaniel said, "a national vote by mail system would open the door to a new set of problems, such as potential election fraud.

[58] In June 2020, McDaniel shared a RNC video warning about voter fraud in the upcoming 2020 election due to expansions of vote-by-mail related to the coronavirus pandemic.

State election officials, in many cases Republicans, are expanding vote-by-mail as a public health precaution to prevent the risk of spreading the coronavirus — not to rig the outcome.

In January 2018, Steve Wynn resigned as RNC finance chairman after he was accused of sexual misconduct and McDaniel came under pressure to return his donations.

[69][70] In September 2019, McDaniel emailed Doug Manchester, whose nomination to become Ambassador to the Bahamas was stalled in the Senate, asking for $500,000 in donations to the Republican Party.

[74] McDaniel said Comey was a liar and a leaker, and said that the RNC would "make sure the American people understand why he has no one but himself to blame for his complete lack of credibility".

[74][75] Politico reported in November 2018 that McDaniel called on the Republican candidate Martha McSally to be more aggressive during the ballot counting process in the Arizona Senate race.

[80] Many of the network's hosts publicly opposed the hiring, due to her statements about the 2020 election, which included instances of undermining journalism and attacks on journalistic integrity.