Great Stakes: Michigan GOP disarray sparks court intervention and dueling conventions

The Michigan Republican Party’s infighting could become very public this weekend if the GOP’s competing factions, one led by Hoekstra and another by 2022 Michigan Secretary of State nominee Kristina Karamo, each hold a convention to determine the state’s last 39 delegates, as they have promised to do. Questions were raised on Thursday regarding Karamo’s Detroit-based convention when a Michigan Court of Appeals declined to consider her appeal of Hoekstra’s leadership challenge before the weekend, although her appeal is still pending.

Thursday’s court’s decision may not have ended the Michigan Republican Party’s fight, but it started last month when the Michigan Republican State Committee first voted to remove Karamo as chairwoman over allegations of mismanagement and then elected Hoekstra as her replacement. Though Karamo, who became the state GOP’s first black chairperson only last year, denies the allegations, what is widely agreed is that they have undermined the party.

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), dean of Michigan’s congressional delegation, called the state’s Republican Party “very weak,” saying “most candidates” are “simply planning to run our own campaigns and expect no help from the party.”

“With Pete Hoekstra stepping up and saying, ‘Enough’s enough,’ I think a good number of the delegates agreeing with him, the national party now agreeing with him, I think the court cases will ultimately agree,” Walberg told the Washington Examiner.

Walberg’s No. 1 concern is the Michigan Republican Party’s problems with money, what he described as the “lifeblood” and “mother’s milk of politics.”

“Other concerns about how the dollars have been spent and the total disunity in the party, I think there’s a necessity of trying to do what we can to change it and to recoup whatever is possible because we have a race that we ought to win at the presidential level, at the congressional level, at the U.S. Senate level, and certainly at the statehouse level,” he said. “You’ve seen people across the state with pocketbooks open, step up, and begin to do it on their own, not trusting the party. That’s a bad, bad picture, so hopefully Pete Hoekstra can bring about at least a certainty amongst those that say we want to support the Republican Party, but we can’t do it if we don’t know that our dollars are being spent well.”

But Hoekstra does not connect with every Michigan Republican, including Wales Township supervisor Liz Masters, who changed her party registration from Democratic to Republican in protest of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer‘s (D-MI) green energy policies.

“I do feel that Kristina Karamo is basing her situation and her stance on the bylaws and the constitution of their party,” Masters said. “I believe they need to go back to the fundamentals like she’s insisting. … I don’t think people will accept it if it’s against the bylaws.”

Karamo’s appeal makes the case that both the Michigan Republican State Committee’s meetings did not adhere to the party’s bylaws and that many of the people on the panel remain with her.

The Michigan Republican Party’s divisions were on display last weekend during an Americans for Prosperity event in Shelby Township with Reps. John James (R-MI) and Lisa McClain (R-MI). TJ Tomlinson, 74, of Richmond Township and Bill Spaulding, 82, of Lexington may have sat beside each other, but they found themselves on opposite sides of the state GOP.

“They’re getting down to such minutia, nitpicky details on the point of laws and bylaws and everything else,” said Tomlinson, a retiree. “I kind of like to go back to basics. From what I saw at that convention when they elected her, an overwhelming number of people wanted her as chairman. I didn’t vote for her, but I mean, that was the choice of the people. She did a terrible job? I don’t know. I hear different things, but I look at who’s in charge now. Trump puts Hoekstra in charge, and he was a complete disaster. I mean, [House] Intelligence Committee guy, the very thing that I ran for delegate to get out of control of the party.”

But Spaulding countered, “She’s not done the job. We have a chance to pick up a Senate seat in Michigan, a very good chance. We have some very good candidates.”

Despite Trump endorsing Hoekstra for the Michigan Republican Party’s chairmanship in January and the RNC recognizing him a couple of weeks later, his and Karamo’s competing state conventions could complicate which delegates can participate at the Republican National Convention this summer in Milwaukee.

“I’m not concerned,” Hoekstra texted earlier this week. “We will get organized. Public concerned about inflation, security, safety, not condition of GOP.”

“We will have a strong campaign effort to assist candidates up and down ballot,” he added on Thursday after the court’s decision. “Lots of groups willing to help. We have a unique opportunity to be successful in 2024.”

University of Michigan political science professor Ken Kollman agreed the Michigan Republican Party has “time to rebuild” but underscored the importance of state parties to political and campaign organizing.

“This is what happens when you get a process where the really diehard committed ideologues capture control of the political party machinery, and they can often not be very organizationally adept, and it causes all kinds of problems,” Kollman said.

“When you are the head of the state Republican Party, you’ve got to be thinking about really nuts and bolts things, getting candidates on the ballot, raising money,” he continued. “You have to be sensitive to the different wings of the party. You should be trying to unite. You should be trying to comfort people who say, ‘Well, I don’t love Trump, but I want to elect a Republican Congress. I want to take back the Michigan House and Senate; I want to set up to win back the governorship.'”

For Michigan State University Institute of Public Policy and Social Research Director Matthew Grossmann, the Michigan Republican Party’s one advantage is that both Hoekstra and Karamo are pro-Trump.

“Interestingly, there is a dispute, but it’s kind of over the same agreed lines,” Grossmann said. “If you listen to what the Kristina Karamo faction says, they say, ‘These major funders have ignored the grassroots and have been in control of the Republican Party for years.’ And if you listen to what the other side says, they say, ‘This group doesn’t know what they’re doing and can’t raise any money.’ And that’s kind of saying the same thing.”

But regardless, Michigan state House Minority Whip Mike Harris, who also chairs the House Republican Campaign Committee’s recruiting panel, contended the Michigan GOP’s fight is “unfortunate” because “it hurts us all.”

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“I can tell you, coming from the Michigan House of Representatives, we’re worried about branding ourselves,” Harris said. “We’re trying not to get involved in the state party politics. We’re really focused on winning this next election in 2024.”

Hoekstra’s convention will be in Grand Rapids this Saturday after this week’s Michigan Republican primary allocated the first 12 delegates to Trump, with 68% of the vote. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley received four delegates, with 27%. Republicans’ split nominating contest is a result of Democrats reordering their national primary calendar to protect Biden, with the reforms at odds with the RNC’s own order rules.