RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel furious over NY Times op-ed declaring female Republican politicians ‘on the verge of extinction’

On December 31, the New York Times published an op-ed by author/historian Dr. Nancy L. Cohen, who argued that “Republican women, at both the national and state levels, are on the brink of extinction.” And Ronna Romney McDaniel, who chairs the Republican National Committee (RNC), is vehemently disagreeing with Cohen’s assertions.

In her op-ed, Cohen made a strong case for why the Democratic Party is much more popular among female politicians than the GOP: “Republicans will ring in the new year with only 13 women in the House of Representatives, the lowest number since 1993, and eight women in the Senate. There are, for comparison, 88 Democratic women in the House and 17 Democratic women in the Senate."

Cohen went on to outline how much ground the GOP has been losing among women: “In 2012,” Cohen explained, “female voters, outraged over Republican attacks on Planned Parenthood and access to birth control, powered President Barack Obama to re-election and denied Republicans two winnable Senate seats. Republican women’s representation in Congress decreased by 21%, while Democratic women increased theirs by 26%.”

Appearing on Fox News, McDaniel (the 46-year-old niece of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney) told “Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt that Cohen’s op-ed is “fake news.” McDaniel went on to say, “While they keep pushing this narrative, they always ignore women that are leading the way in the Republican Party.”

The RNC chair then cited some GOP women who are in prominent positions, including Trump senior advisers Kellyanne Conway and Ivanka Trump and Transportation Security Elaine Chao. And McDaniel insisted, “Woman all over this country recognize that President Trump’s policies are working for them.”

But while McDaniel got in her share of GOP talking points, she never refuted the data Cohen presented in her Times op-ed — such as 88 Democratic women serving in the U.S. House of Representatives compared to only 13 Republican women.

Nor did McDaniel present any real evidence to refute Cohen’s assertion that many women consider Trump a misogynist.

“Mr. Trump’s misogyny and the party’s far-right stance on issues such as abortion and LGBTQ rights, guns and immigration have driven away many female voters,” Cohen wrote in the Times. “Women favor the Democratic Party over the Republican Party by a 19-point margin, according to the Pew Research Center. Seventy-three percent of women under the age of 30 disapprove of the president’s performance, according to the Harvard Institute of Politics Youth Poll.”

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