Michigan GOP chooses 'election deniers' to run for sec. of state and attorney general (ETA maybe)

[essentialsaltes]

In Michigan, voters don't choose some party candidates in a primary election -- the state parties do so via a smaller vote of official party delegates.

Michigan GOP moves forward with 2020 election-denying secretary of state and AG

Michigan Republicans picked two candidates — who deny the 2020 election results and have been endorsed by former President Trump — to serve as the state's next top elections officer and top law enforcement official.

Kristina Karamo, a community college professor who rose to prominence after claiming she saw election fraud in Detroit in the last presidential race, won the three-person race for secretary of state with about 67% of the vote at Saturday's GOP endorsement convention in Grand Rapids. On the November ballot, her opponent will be incumbent Democrat Jocelyn Benson.

Matt DePerno, an attorney who has pushed Trump's false claims of election fraud, won the party's endorsement for attorney general. In a runoff race, DePerno took 54% of the vote to defeat former state House speaker Tom Leonard, who was seen as the more establishment Republican candidate. DePerno is now running against incumbent Democrat Dana Nessel.

Karamo is the first of the many election-denying candidates running in secretary of state races across the U.S to move toward appearing on a state ballot in November. She has also said she doesn't believe evolution should be taught in schools.

she has said she believes the conspiracy theory that left-wing activists were behind the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

I certainly hope the Michigan GOP discovers that the electorate is more reality-based than it is.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

Well at least they are not choosing election cheaters to run for office.

 

[Fantine]

These extremist candidates will drive independents to the other side--but they need to get out to vote.

And Democrats are disappointed because Biden has not been able to do all he promised (a 50-50 Senate when one of the Senators--Manchin--is a DINO doesn't get you much traction.) Still, they think he should do more by executive order, like cancelling student loans.

To me the spectre of voting for many of the Republicans running for office is enough to get me out to the polls just to keep them away from power--but my adult children, among others, disagree.

I guess they feel the "shock therapy" of getting some of these candidates elected will be enough to scare voters progressive.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Once again, satire surrenders to reality.

Human error causes ‘voting fiasco’ at Michigan Republican endorsement convention

Races and candidates on the ballot were displayed on large screens in the convention hall at DeVos Place in Grand Rapids. But the order of the races on the screen didn’t match the order on the ballot, spurring confusion.

The paper ballots on Saturday clearly listed the races, according to a ballot screenshot obtained by MLive. But they didn’t include names, they only said “Candidate A, Candidate B, etc.” Voters had to look at the screen to see who was Candidate A and Candidate B.

Aaron Miller was one of the delegates who realized he voted incorrectly, thinking the attorney general’s race was the last position on the ballot instead of the first. He spoiled his ballot and revoted.

“Several people with me had to spoil their ballots,” Miller said. “A lot of people were confused.”

There weren’t enough extra ballots to toss the ballots and start the second round of voting over, per a person familiar with the situation. Some delegates were upset with the error.

Some delegates may have left without realizing they voted differently than they intended, he said.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Once again, satire surrenders to reality.

Human error causes ‘voting fiasco’ at Michigan Republican endorsement convention

Headline is a question, therefore...

Will the losers from Michigan’s Republican convention concede?

 

[essentialsaltes]

Matt DePerno, an attorney who has pushed Trump's false claims of election fraud, won the party's endorsement for attorney general. In a runoff race, DePerno took 54% of the vote to defeat former state House speaker Tom Leonard, who was seen as the more establishment Republican candidate. DePerno is now running against incumbent Democrat Dana Nessel.

DePerno lost (he even conceded!) but he is now running to be chair of the Michigan GOP.

Venue checks out.

 

[essentialsaltes]

DePerno lost (he even conceded!) but he is now running to be chair of the Michigan GOP.

But he lost to Kristina Karamo, who has still not conceded her loss in the Secretary of State race. So conceding is clearly a sign of weakness that MAGA Michigan will not put up with.

Kristina Karamo, a Republican who has made unsubstantiated allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election and has still not conceded her 14-point loss in the 2022 Michigan election for secretary of state, was elected chair of the Michigan Republican Party Saturday, after three ballots at a state convention.

Karamo drew enthusiastic applause when she said she has yet to concede her 2022 race for Michigan secretary of state, citing unspecified and unsubstantiated fraudulent processes.

Karamo defeated unsuccessful GOP attorney general candidate Matt DePerno of Kalamazoo, a fellow election denier who was endorsed in the party chair race by Trump.

Karamo's election as chair signals the party leadership's shift to nearly full alignment with Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) messaging. Many longtime party stalwarts stayed away from Saturday's convention, unhappy with the party's direction.

Long considered an organizational and fundraising juggernaut, the Michigan Republican Party took a historic shellacking in the November election, losing every statewide office and losing control of the Michigan Senate for the first time in 40 years.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Kristina Karamo, a Republican who has made unsubstantiated allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election and has still not conceded her 14-point loss in the 2022 Michigan election for secretary of state, was elected chair of the Michigan Republican Party Saturday, after three ballots at a state convention.

Long considered an organizational and fundraising juggernaut, the Michigan Republican Party took a historic shellacking in the November election, losing every statewide office and losing control of the Michigan Senate for the first time in 40 years.

'Going to get bad really fast': Longtime Michigan Republicans alarmed by party's MAGA chair​

MLive reports that Karamo ... says that the party should make challenging the agenda of the World Economic Forum a top priority for the Michigan GOP.

“I have a deep concern with the encroachment of the World Economic Forum," she declared to the publication.

 

[Pommer]

'Going to get bad really fast': Longtime Michigan Republicans alarmed by party's MAGA chair​

MLive reports that Karamo ... says that the party should make challenging the agenda of the World Economic Forum a top priority for the Michigan GOP.

“I have a deep concern with the encroachment of the World Economic Forum," she declared to the publication.

The MLive report is much more detailed, (for them who are interested).

 

[essentialsaltes]

Michigan conservatives against extremism trying to start new political party​

Searching for somewhat of a political middle ground, a group of anti-extremist and anti-Trump conservatives are attempting to start a new political party in Michigan: the Common Sense Party.
“We’re concerned about the rise of extremism and the attack on free and fair elections,” said Jeff Timmer, a former Michigan Republican Party executive director who has been a vocal opponent of former President Donald Trump.

 

[essentialsaltes]

‘MAGA vs. ultra-MAGA’: Michigan’s Republican Party at war with itself​

As he ran for Michigan attorney general last year, Matthew DePerno touted his endorsement from Donald Trump, condemned pandemic restrictions, called for imprisoning Democrats and regularly reminded voters that he had filed a lawsuit questioning the outcome of the 2020 election.

Six months after losing that race, the man who was once considered a champion of MAGA-style politics was denounced by Republican activists as a turncoat for attacking the state GOP’s new chairwoman [Karamo] and supporting efforts to expel delegates.

Michigan Republicans on Saturday adopted a plan to break from tradition and award most of their delegates to next year’s Republican National Convention based on the results of party-run caucuses instead of the state’s primary.

Republicans in Macomb County, part of metropolitan Detroit, held competing political conventions last summer after a pro-Trump faction contended that it was in charge. Farther north, Saginaw County Republicans, who have been divided over election denialism and other issues, saw tensions grow so intense ahead of a convention in January that dueling segments of the party each called the police.
In Hillsdale County, a rural area bordering Ohio and Indiana,Republicans from one wing of the party posted armed guards outside their convention last year to keep out about 80 delegates they had disavowed, labeling them members of the establishment. A judge recently ruled that control of the local party belongs to the group that had been left out of that convention.
...
Attendees drank Faygo and ate pizza as Karamo argued that Democrats had turned into Marxists who want to “erase the human family,” called for impeaching and jailing President Biden, and said the country suffers from “mass psychosis.”

 

[essentialsaltes]

Michigan GOP chair, others fined $58K for ‘frivolous’ election fraud suit​

Michigan Republican Party chair Kristina Karamo and eight others have been sanctioned by a Wayne County judge, ordered to pay more than $58,000 over their lawsuit that alleged, without evidence, there was widespread voter fraud in Detroit days before the November 2022 election.

 

[Fantine]

After losing both state legislatures you'd think doubling down wouldn't be their next move.
Michigan has soundly rejected extremism.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Scuffle breaks out at Michigan GOP state committee meeting​

Tensions within the Michigan Republican Party evolved into a physical altercation that drew police Saturday to the GOP's state committee meeting at a hotel in Clare.

"He [James Chapman, a Republican from Wayne County] kicked me in my balls as soon as I opened the door,” [Clare Co. GOP Chair Mark] DeYoung said.

The scuffle intensified with Chapman running at DeYoung and slamming him into a chair, DeYoung said. DeYoung provided his account in a phone interview from an emergency room in Clare. DeYoung said he had suffered a broken rib.

 

[essentialsaltes]

National Review is getting tired of these knuckleheads in Michigan (and 3 other states)

The Quiet Collapse of Four Key State Republican Parties​

in at least a quartet of key states, the state Republican parties are collapsing — going broke and devolving into infighting little fiefdoms. Even worse for the GOP, these aren’t just any states — Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota all rank as either key swing states or once-purple states that would be tantalizing targets in a good year. Meanwhile, the Georgia state Republican Party is spending a small fortune on the legal fees of those “alternate” Republican electors from the 2020 presidential election. If Republicans are disappointed with the results of the 2024 elections — for the fourth straight cycle, mind you — a key factor will be the replacement of competent, boring, regular state-party officials with quite exciting, blustering nutjobs who have little or no interest in the basics of successfully managing a state party

In these states, we are seeing the self-marginalization of the Republican Party. No outside force came along and forced these state parties to spend money, alienate traditional supporters and donors, pick nasty fights with their own lawmakers, turn loyalty to Trump into the preeminent litmus test on all issues and disputes, and alienate and repel once-persuadable swing voters. No, the people who took over these parties chose this path.

The MAGA crowd now running these state parties insisted they didn’t need anyone else. And now we see where that got them.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Scuffle breaks out at Michigan GOP state committee meeting​

Tensions within the Michigan Republican Party evolved into a physical altercation that drew police Saturday to the GOP's state committee meeting at a hotel in Clare.

Michigan’s GOP is ‘a doggone mess’: inside a party torn by infighting and paranoia​

Chairwoman Kristina Karamo pledged to unify the Michigan Republican Party. So in late August the party’s general counsel, Dan Hartman, proposed a “peace summit” to heal a rift in the Kalamazoo County Republican Party.
It failed spectacularly.

In the months following her February election as chair, many of Karamo’s promises have not come to pass. An ambitious fundraising plan never went into motion and she remains preoccupied with conspiracies of widespread election fraud and “global totalitarianism.”

In recent weeks Karamo has begun sending her message directly to the people through video dispatches on social media. With a scenic Upper Peninsula view for her latest post, Karamo spoke about Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s “plan to make Michigan carbon-neutral by 2032″ — Whitmer previously called for carbon neutrality in Michigan by 2050 and recently supported a carbon-free energy standard in Michigan without mentioning a deadline.

Karamo alleged Whitmer’s plan “is eerily similar to the United Nations’ Agenda 2030. This plan is to usher in global totalitarianism … and we’re determined to stop it here at the Michigan Republican Party.”

 

[essentialsaltes]

Conspiracists and creationists: Why Michigan GOP’s conference looks a bit different this year​

(short answer, Kristina Karamo)

In 2015, the last time the Republican presidential nomination was up for grabs, at least five presidential contenders showed up, [but this year only Vivek Ramaswamy will be there.]

Ramaswamy will be the most prominent speaker. The lion’s share of the lineup, however, is made up of thought leaders from niche corners of conservative media unfamiliar to most Michiganders. Speakers are anticipated to discuss topics like election fraud conspiracy theories, child sex trafficking, “woke” politics and the erosion of Christianity from U.S. government.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Michigan Republican Party faces financial turmoil, bank records show​

The Michigan Republican Party had about $35,000 in its bank accounts in August, according to internal records that flash new warning signs about the dire state of the GOP's finances and raise questions about whether the organization is complying with campaign finance laws.

A listing of Michigan Republican Party account balances from West Michigan Community Bank showed $35,051 across seven accounts, with expenses for many of the scheduled speakers at the Sept. 22-24 conference on Mackinac Island [i.e. previous post] not yet paid, including author Dinesh D'Souza and unsuccessful former Arizona candidate for governor Kari Lake.

At this point, 13 months before a presidential election, the Michigan Republican Party should have about $10 million in its accounts, said Tom Leonard, a former Michigan House speaker and former finance chairman for the state GOP.

In July, the Federal Election Commission asked the Michigan Republican Party why its financial tallies for the federal committee appeared to be incorrect. On Sept. 11, the party said it was working to address the question.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Michigan Republican Party faces financial turmoil, bank records show​

The Michigan Republican Party had about $35,000 in its bank accounts in August, according to internal records that flash new warning signs about the dire state of the GOP's finances and raise questions about whether the organization is complying with campaign finance laws.

MAGA-dominated state Republican parties plagued by infighting, money woes [gift]​

In Arizona, the state GOP chairman has been begging the Republican National Committee for a financial bailout. Michigan party officials have gotten into physical fights as their finances have dipped into the red. And in Georgia, the state party is in a standoff with the Republican governor and saddled with legal fees for alternate electors put forward in 2020.

“There has been an emphasis on ideological cleansing instead of electioneering,” said John Watson, the Georgia GOP chairman from 2017 to 2019. “If those new entrants to the party want to argue the earth is flat and the election is stolen, those are counterproductive to winning elections.”

State parties are typically critical in election years for mobilizing volunteers and running get-out-the-vote efforts, and they can collect larger checks or buy cheaper airtime than other groups. Those functions are now in doubt as the fissures fuel finger-pointing and competition for donor dollars.

Michigan: ‘Amateur hour’​

In Michigan, infighting within the state GOP has twice broken out into physical altercations. The fights played out as Republicans there have disputed who controls some county parties, with competing factions claiming to be in charge.

The state chair, Kristina Karamo, was elected in February in a MAGA groundswell

“What you have to understand, there was a disruption in the system,” Karamo said in an interview at a Trump campaign event in Michigan in September. “I’m not your milquetoast Republican. So people who want a stuffy, disconnected, elitist party, I’m not their girl, and I’m not going to ask them for anything.”

Some of her past supporters are already calling for her ouster.

The pressure led Karamo to address party members in an emergency meeting in late October. At the meeting, party officials revealed they had a deficit of $375,000 as of April, with $265,000 in the bank and $640,000 in debt.

The party has also been roiled in recent weeks by the leak of a spreadsheet that ranked the attendees of a Republican conference on a four-point scale that ranged from “patriot who might volunteer” to “Me First or RINO or Concerning Affiliations.” Stalwart party members blanched at being labeled RINOs, or Republicans in name only.

Arizona: ‘We desperately need to keep the lights on’​

In January, Jeff DeWit was elected Arizona state GOP chairman as a consensus choice who could bridge the party’s internal divisions

DeWit [told Ronna McDaniel of the RNC] they were in debt because of legal bills related to putting forward alternate electors falsely claiming Trump won the 2020 election.

Multiple state parties have asked McDaniel and the RNC for money for 2020-related legal bills, according to people familiar with the matter.
McDaniel encouraged him to draft a plan detailing needs and goals, and said the party was not paying legal bills.

In early September, DeWit thwarted the county party’s efforts to withdraw from the 2024 state government-run presidential preference election and hold its own one-day, in-person vote with paper ballots that would have been counted by hand. The party did not have the money, manpower or infrastructure to run an election for 1.4 million eligible voters, he said. He received attacks from Trump supporters, who were pushing for such a move.

Georgia: ‘A severe uphill climb’

The state party is stuck paying legal bills for the alternate electors after the executive committee voted in January to indemnify them

“I know I’m going to get in trouble for this, but our general [Governor Kemp] has not lifted a finger to help the Georgia GOP,” [Georgia vice chair] Cross said to cheers.

Kemp’s allies in the state legislature created a new type of political committee with no contribution limits, effectively empowering Kemp to bypass the official state party in fundraising and election spending.
A Kemp adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid,said the move was necessary because the formal party leadership had been taken over by extremists

<this is literally a schism in the party -- separate lines of fundraising and spending>

--

So Trump supporters, keep pointing at Trump's rally attendance. But don't act all surprised if these dysfunctional broke state parties fail to get out the vote on the day it matters.

 

[essentialsaltes]

So Trump supporters, keep pointing at Trump's rally attendance. But don't act all surprised if these dysfunctional broke state parties fail to get out the vote on the day it matters.

House Republicans are quarreling and their campaign arm fundraising has slowed​

The National Republican Congressional Committee raised slightly over $5 million in October, about half of what it raised at the same point in past off-year cycles.

The latest report underscores the NRCC’s cash challenges heading into a competitive election year. The Republican campaign committee reported having $37.3 million in the bank at the end of October, trailing its Democratic counterpart by about $10 million.

The House speaker gig is critical in funneling cash to the conference and McCarthy has been a fundraising juggernaut with an extensive donor network. Johnson has also begun building out his campaign finance infrastructure.