RNC Chair Michael Whatley: We Are ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ That Election Results Will Be Fair

By Hannah Knudsen

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Michael Whatley is “cautiously optimistic” that election results will be fair come Election Day, he said during a press call on Wednesday discussing the RNC’s election integrity efforts this election cycle.

• Whatley walked through some of the recent victories, noting the RNC supported Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R-VA) case with an amicus brief, “because the American elections should be decided by Americans,” touting that recent decision — the Supreme Court issuing the stay by a 6-3 vote — upholding Youngkin’s executive order and keeping noncitizens off the voter rolls in his state.

  “This is a major victory for election integrity. This is exactly why our efforts are so important. While Democrats continue to push to have illegals on the rolls, and for States not to have to clean up their voter rolls, we are protecting the vote for all Americans today,” he said, also pointing to a recent victory in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

  “We have heard that we won this lawsuit, and Bucks County has extended pre-Election Day voting through November 1. This is a landmark victory that will allow our voters to cast those votes pursuant to Pennsylvania,” he said, making it clear the “RNC will leave no stone unturned in ensuring a fair, accurate and secure and transparent election, not just for Republican voters, but for all voters.”

  During the Q&A portion of the call, a reporter asked if the RNC is concerned that the election results will be fair come Election Day.

  “Well, what I would say at this point in time, we feel that we have an infrastructure in place to work with local officials and monitor the elections as they’re moving forward,” Whatley said, pointing to “significant improvements in election law made in a number of states all across the country.”

  “So we are cautiously optimistic that we’re going to we’re going to feel very comfortable with it. As I said, you know, we want to see fair, accurate, secure and transparent elections, and we’re, we’re very hopeful that that’s what’s going to happen on November 5,” he added.

  RNC Co-Chair Lara Trump said these concerns are exactly why they designed the extensive election integrity program.

  “We are incredibly confident in the team we put together. And as you’ve seen, when we identify an issue, we are dealing with it in the moment. We are not waiting. There’s no days, weeks or months later that we want to wait on anything. And I think that’s why we felt so good so far about what we’ve been able to do now,” she continued.

  “We’re going to take every day as it comes, and every day may be different, but we are very hopeful that on November 5, we have a result of this election, and we feel very confident again in the team we put in place and the program we established,” she added.

  This comes as roughly one-quarter have low confidence that the election will be conducted fairly, per a recent survey from the Economist/YouGov.

  Among Republicans specifically, 36 percent said they have a “moderate” amount of confidence the election will be fair, while 23 percent have “only a little” confidence and 11 percent have “none at all.” Another 15 percent said they have “quite a bit” of confidence, but only 12 percent have “a great deal’ of confidence it will be fair.