By Nathan Layne and Alexandra Ulmer
HOUSTON, Texas (Reuters) -Donald Trump cemented his grip on the Republican National Committee on Friday after his daughter-in-law and another ally assumed top leadership posts amid a debate among members over whether the organization should help pay his legal bills.
RNC members meeting in Houston voted to appoint North Carolina Republican Party head Michael Whatley and Lara Trump as chair and co-chair of the organization, which will play a key role in marshaling voters and funds for the Nov. 5 general election.
The comes after Trump swept the Super Tuesday primary contests, prompting Nikki Haley to drop out of the race and all but assuring the former U.S. president will be the nominee and face off against President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
The reshuffling sees Ronna McDaniel replaced atop the organization. McDaniel faced criticism over fundraising and the party's performance at the ballot box. During her tenure, Trump was defeated in 2020, and the party turned in a weaker-than-expected performance in the 2022 congressional midterm elections.
Some RNC members have called for the RNC to help pay for Trump's legal expenses, which along with penalties have ballooned to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Trump's push to have the wife of his younger adult son Eric as second-in-command symbolizes his takeover of a political institution whose mission is to get Republicans elected up and down the ballot. Not since President Ronald Reagan's daughter Maureen Reagan was RNC co-chair in the 1980s has a family member of a president or nominee served in such a position of power.
One of the new leadership's most pressing tasks will be money. After recording its lowest fundraising year in 2023 in a decade, the RNC had less than $9 million in the bank at the end of January, a little more than a third of the Democratic National Committee's $24 million, federal filings show.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne, Alexandra Ulmer and Jason Lange; editing by Ross Colvin and Jonathan Oatis)
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