Leaderless Michigan GOP seeks new direction in chair race
LANSING » The Michigan Republican Party is set to elect its next chair Saturday from a field led by far-right candidates after sweeping losses to Democrats in last year’s midterms left Republicans powerless in the state government and the party in disarray.
The winner, inheriting a state party torn apart by infighting and millions in debt, will be tasked with helping the party win back control of the Legislature and flip one of the nation’s most competitive Senate seats while attempting to help a presidential candidate win the battleground state.
Republican delegates will vote to select the party’s next leader during a spring convention Saturday in Lansing. The highest-profile candidates in the 10-candidate field are Matthew Deperno and Kristina Karamo, two of the state’s loudest election conspiracists who lost by wide margins for top statewide offices in the 2022 midterms.
Other candidates vying for the position include two county GOP chairs, a political consultant, a real estate agent, an information technology specialist and other political newbies.
Deperno is considered the favorite to win and has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, along with other far-right GOP leaders Michael Flynn and Kari Lake, after losing the attorney general race. Hanging over his bid is an investigation by a special prosecutor reviewing whether to criminally charge Deperno and others for attempting to gain access to voting machines after the 2020 election.
Karamo seeks to lead the party after losing her secretary of state race by double-digits with a campaign centered on election conspiracies. In her campaign announcement for the chair, Karamo said the state is on “the precipice of tyranny, which voting alone will not be able to overcome.”
With a field dominated by grassroots activist candidates running on far-right messaging, many longtime Michigan Republicans have already given up on the state party that was once one of the best-funded in the country.
“We lost the entire statehouse for the first time in 40 years, in large part, because of the top of the ticket. All deniers. It turned off a lot of voters,” former longtime Republican U.S. Rep. Fred Upton said. “As I look at the state convention, it looks like it could well be more of the same.”
The party may take “a cycle or two to correct itself and to get out of the ditch that we’ve been in for the last couple of years,” Upton told The Associated Press.
The state party previously has been led by former U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham, former Education Secretary Betsy Devos and current national Republican Party Chair Ronna Mcdaniel. The party built a large volunteer base of grassroots activists, former Chair Bobby Schostak said, while also raising “$30 to $35 million each cycle.”