Efforts to shield President Trump from a primary challenge have reached Michigan, where Republican leaders are rewriting party rules for winning GOP delegates to the 2020 nominating convention.
The move, overseen by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, is part of a coordinated, national strategy to grease the president’s renomination. Republicans in state after state are amending party regulations governing the allocation of delegates in primaries and caucuses, effectively blocking GOP challengers from earning the right to have their name placed in nomination at the convention in Charlotte.
Michigan is also a battleground critical to Trump’s general reelection prospects. His campaign, working closely with the RNC, is acting early to exert its influence over the party’s political operations in the state.
“The Michigan Republican Party stands behind the President and his America First agenda, and we are committed to putting the organizational framework in place to ensure his reelection in 2020,” state GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox said Tuesday in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
The Michigan Republican Party is amending the rules determining the distribution of convention delegates to put the president’s potential GOP rivals at a decided disadvantage. Current regulations, a remnant of the crowded 2016 primary, award delegates proportionally, offering multiple candidates opportunities for success. The new rules being drafted will ensure the lion’s share of delegates, if not all, is controlled by the candidate, almost assuredly Trump, who wins the most primary votes statewide.
Additionally, the state party tapped Michael Ambrosini, a political operative from Washington, to oversee strategy and operations as executive director. An individual with Michigan ties traditionally filled this position. Ambrosini’s ties are to the RNC and former GOP chairman Reince Priebus, also Trump’s first chief of staff. Some veteran Michigan Republicans view Ambrosini’s hiring as unmistakable evidence of Trump assuming direct command of the state party.
“My sense is that the White House wanted someone who would do what they told them to do,” said Matt Resch, an experienced GOP operative in Lansing, the state capital. “Some Michigan names were in the mix. But when it came down to it, they couldn’t get a 100% guarantee that they were going to be 100% Trump, 100% of the time.”
Not all Republican insiders in Michigan subscribe to this view.
Stu Sandler, who works closely with the state party, said the goal was to hire a talented political professional who could get the job done for Trump and the GOP down-ballot in a Midwestern battleground that is sure to be among the most heavily contested of the 2020 campaign. Trump narrowly won Michigan in 2016, and the state’s 16 votes in the Electoral College could hold the key to his winning a second term.
“I was very involved in the selection of the executive director,” Sandler said. “This wasn’t a push-down from the Trump people.”
Republicans are attempting to maximize the benefits of incumbency.
While Democrats are mired in a crowded, divisive primary, possibly more than a year away from crowning a nominee, the Trump campaign, working in conjunction with the RNC, is deploying staff and assembling an extensive voter turnout infrastructure to the states expected to decide the election.
Michigan is a high priority for Trump. In March, he traveled there recently for one of his signature #MAGA rallies. Vice President Mike Pence was in Michigan last month to pitch Trump’s trade agenda, a key issue for many voters there.
“We intend to win Michigan again in 2020 and plan to be very involved in the state,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany.
