ATLANTA — In a move that cements former President Donald Trump’s influence over the Republican Party, Florida state Senator Joe Gruters was unanimously elected as the new chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) on August 22, 2025, during the party’s summer meeting in Atlanta. The election, which took place in the heart of battleground Georgia, signals a strategic shift as the GOP prepares to defend and expand its majorities in the 2026 midterms and beyond.
Gruters’ ascension follows the departure of Michael Whatley, who stepped down from the RNC chairmanship to pursue a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina after Senator Thom Tillis announced his retirement. Whatley, who had earned Trump’s endorsement for his Senate run, introduced Gruters to the committee and praised him as a “true conservative fighter” and a steadfast Trump ally. “Because of the incredible work of every member of the RNC, we had front-row seats to the greatest political comeback in American history,” Whatley said in his farewell remarks, according to CNN. He credited Gruters for turning Florida from a swing state to a Republican stronghold, a transformation that many in the party hope he can replicate on the national stage.
Gruters, who previously served as the RNC’s treasurer and chaired the Florida GOP from 2019 to 2023, ran unopposed for the chairmanship. Trump’s “complete and total endorsement” cleared the field, making the vote a formality. In a statement on social media, Trump called Gruters a “MAGA warrior who has been with us from the very beginning” and said he would do a “wonderful job as chairman,” as reported by Fox News Digital.
During his acceptance speech, Gruters struck a tone of unity and forward-looking optimism. “The midterms are ahead, where we must expand our majority in the House [and] the Senate and continue electing Republicans nationwide, and then we march towards the presidential election where the stakes cannot be higher,” he said, according to the Florida Phoenix. Gruters emphasized that the party’s future “isn’t about one person,” but he left no doubt about his loyalty to Trump’s vision. “This is the president’s party. This is the president’s vision, overall. The party fully embraces the president, and we’re gonna ride the president all the way to victory in the midterms, and we are going to win big,” he told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.
Gruters’ record in Florida is a major part of his appeal. Under his leadership, the Republican Party of Florida not only erased a Democratic voter registration advantage of 263,269 after the 2018 election but swung the pendulum to a Republican lead of 292,533 by the fall of 2022. That’s a staggering shift of nearly 556,000 registered voters, according to PBS and ABC News. Many see this as the blueprint for national Republican success. Scott Golden, chair of the Tennessee Republican Party and a longtime Gruters ally, told ABC News, “You’re registering almost a million new Republicans in Florida. That was what Joe’s chairmanship was, kind of the hallmark of what he was able to do… after Joe’s chairmanship, Florida slipped from battleground status.”
Fundraising prowess is another of Gruters’ touted strengths. The RNC currently boasts more than $80 million in cash on hand, over five times that of its Democratic counterpart, a financial position Gruters acknowledged was due to Whatley’s “grinding” fundraising work, as reported by CNN. As a certified public accountant and “terrific, terrific” fundraiser, in Golden’s words, Gruters is expected to keep the party’s coffers well-stocked heading into a critical election cycle.
Yet, Gruters’ elevation is not without controversy. His relationship with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been notably strained. DeSantis, who has kept the door open for future presidential ambitions, publicly criticized Gruters in July 2025, saying, “Joe Gruters has taken major positions that are totally contrary from what our voter base wants to do… If George Washington rose from the dead and came back and tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Will you appoint Joe Gruters CFO?’ My response would be ‘no.’” DeSantis instead appointed Blaise Ingoglia as Florida’s chief financial officer, bypassing Gruters despite his “golden ticket” Trump endorsement, as the Florida Phoenix reported. Gruters, for his part, has expressed openness to mending fences, telling Florida Politics he is willing to move forward with DeSantis.
The rivalry between Gruters and DeSantis is more than personal; it reflects deeper strategic and ideological divides within the party. For example, Gruters supported Amendment 3 to legalize recreational marijuana in Florida, while DeSantis lobbied successfully for its defeat. Gruters also sponsored legislation to limit gubernatorial oversight of immigration policy, which DeSantis vetoed. Despite these differences, both men have praised Florida’s mail-in voting system—Gruters called it the “gold standard”—though Gruters has not publicly contradicted Trump’s push to eliminate mail-in voting nationwide.
Gruters plans to continue serving in the Florida Senate while leading the RNC, but he is barred from participating in or commenting on Florida’s redistricting efforts due to the state’s “Fair Districts” constitutional amendments. Nevertheless, his dual roles are expected to have ripple effects in Florida and beyond, especially as the party navigates contentious redistricting battles in states like Texas and California.
Democrats were quick to criticize Gruters’ election. DNC deputy rapid response director Jaelin O’Halloran described him as “just who Donald Trump would want for the position: a parrot for his own extremist agenda,” accusing Gruters of bringing “his worst ideas from Florida to the national stage.” The RNC, however, is undeterred. Gruters has made clear that his top priorities are “election integrity, protecting the vote, and winning the midterms,” as he told Fox News Digital. He stressed the importance of “going back to the fundamentals of registering voters and turning our voters out.”
Veteran Republican strategist Brett Doster summed up Gruters’ role for ABC News: “With Joe Gruters as GOP chairman, Trump gets a practiced mouthpiece who will go to war for the administration on the Sunday shows and will keep the RNC rigidly fixed on the Trump - Wiles playbook for the midterms. Gruters will be undistracted by Congressional or Senate power plays.”
As the RNC looks ahead to 2026, the party’s unity under Trump’s leadership and Gruters’ stewardship will be tested by both internal divisions and external challenges. With a robust financial war chest, a proven record of voter registration success, and a clear mandate from the party’s dominant faction, Gruters steps into the role with high expectations—and the eyes of both supporters and skeptics fixed squarely on his next moves.
