LANSING, Mich. — In the end, it didn’t matter that Kristina Karamo had never won a statewide election, that she had frightened moderate voters by comparing abortion to a “satanic practice” or that she had refused to concede her resounding loss for secretary of state in November. After three tedious rounds of voting at a Michigan Republican Party convention last weekend, a majority of about 2,000 precinct delegates chose Karamo to lead this important swing-state political apparatus through the 2024 presidential election.
“We will not betray you. We will not lie to you. We are committed to every promise that we made,” Karamo told the crowd during her acceptance speech as party chair.
Karamo and her running mate, County Commissioner Malinda Pego, prevailed in the final round of voting last Saturday. And in a new sign of former President Donald Trump’s diminishing influence, the women beat the Trump-endorsed ticket of Matt DePerno and Garrett Soldano to replace MAGA loyalist Meshawn Maddock and establishment fundraiser Ron Weiser. Maddock and Weiser had formed a tenuous alliance leading Michigan Republicans for the last two years.
It had taken nearly 12 hours to get to this moment. The Michigan GOP, awash in the baseless conspiracy theory that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election through some form of machine tampering, decided before the convention to shun electronic tabulators. It opted instead for what it believed to be a more secure paper and iPad-based method. The entire process had taken so long that organizers were forced to extend their rental of the Lansing Convention Center, with money it didn’t have.
Karamo, who is tall with a gentle smile, delivered her acceptance remarks with just 15 minutes left on the rental contract, as volunteers snapped closed thousands of black folding chairs. “We cannot wait to get work done as one Michigan Republican Party,” she said to passionate applause, “and we are gonna beat the Democrats in 2024.”
Few people outside of this room actually believe that Republicans can come close to “beating the Democrats in 2024,” or in any other year in the near term. Things have been going horribly for Republicans in this once-solidly purple state, a fact that delegates were forced to confront at their convention. First Trump lost Michigan in 2020, helping hand Joe Biden the presidency. Then Republicans nominated a painfully, almost comically flawed slate in November’s midterm elections and ended up losing both chambers of the state legislature. Their nominee at the top of the ticket, Tudor Dixon, a conservative commentator and education activist, came barely within half a million votes of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Karamo stood out as the least electable Republican statewide, losing by the biggest margin following a campaign that sought to undermine confidence in Michigan’s election system.
Thanks to its hard pivot right in the midterms, the Michigan GOP is millions of dollars in debt and on the verge of a philosophical and organizational breakdown. Many donors have abandoned the party completely. And its lurch to the right will only accelerate under Karamo, who, three days after her elevation to party chair, told podcaster Steve Bannon that “Michigan has become ground zero for the globalist takeover of the United States of America.” In the same interview, Karamo called Biden a “known traitor” and “illegitimate president,” statements she said are “known facts.”
Far from a whacky conspiracist, Karamo supporters saw her as a well-intentioned true believer who pledged to empower the overwhelming number of “Make America Great Again” delegates elected since 2016. None of the people I spoke to ever mentioned that Karamo, who’s in her mid-30s, would be the first Black woman to lead the Michigan Republican Party, an impressive feat in its own right for an organization that skews old and white. Karamo didn’t even mention it herself in her brief acceptance speech.
“We need change,” said Elise Bennett, one of the dozens of precinct delegates I spoke to at the convention who were well aware of the party’s financial struggles and itching for a leadership turnover that returned power to delegates. Bennett, a 40-year-old communications director wearing a patriotic cowboy hat, was backing Karamo. “There’s a lot of stagnation. There’s a lot of self-serving. There’s a lot of working for the other team. We need to get back to a position where actual people from small towns are getting involved and really taking it back to the grassroots.”
“Just because Trump endorses you doesn’t mean you’re gonna win.”
- Michigan GOP delegate Walter Bujack
Shockingly, few people seemed to care that Trump had endorsed another Republican for the job: DePerno, who along with Karamo and Tudor Dixon rounded out the GOP’s trio of unsuccessful candidates for top offices. After years of knee-jerk fealty, Trump was a nonfactor in this race, an emerging sign that Republicans might be thawing out from his freeze as he seeks another term in office. The convention was even light on over-the-top MAGA gear — although one man was proudly sporting a T-shirt featuring Whitmer, a punching bag of the right, with an Adolf Hitler mustache.
“Just because Trump endorses you doesn’t mean you’re gonna win,” said Walter Bujack, a county commissioner who was supporting a lesser-known candidate for chairman, Billy Putnam II, because he considered both Karamo and DePerno too establishment. “Look around here. This is a room full of precinct delegates that are ‘America first,’ grassroots delegates. Yes, they understand and aspire to the Trump policies. But they’re looking for a leader, not necessarily just somebody who Trump tells them to vote for. This isn’t just like Rush Limbaugh saying to go vote for somebody.”
Eric Castigilia, director of the Brighter Michigan PAC, complained that people who continue to benefit from Trump’s policies but who don’t follow his endorsements are trying to have it both ways.
“A lot of people in this caucus say they’re Trump supporters, but a lot are going against the Trump-endorsed candidate,” said Castiglia, who was backing DePerno. He said he doesn’t like Karamo because she didn’t concede her race for secretary of state and address her supporters on election night in November. “If you’re really a Trump person, why wouldn’t you support the person he endorsed? There’s a reason he did that.”
Castiglia also lamented the lack of unity in the Michigan GOP. “We’re a big tent party, and I think our party’s forgotten that. We have a lot of purists right now,” he said.
The prevailing view from outside the convention hall was that DePerno was the better of two terrifying options. You had Karamo, whose nebulous professional experience includes teaching a community college orientation course and hosting a weekly live trivia show, as well as identifying as a “Christian apologist.” And then DePerno, a hard-edged election denier who’s facing legal trouble for allegedly tampering with voting machines.
It’s a situation that Michigan-based Republican strategist Jason Roe described prior to the convention as: “We’re fucked.”
While DePerno had Trump’s backing and a major grassroots following, he wasn’t actually the Trumpiest candidate. “Even before the Trump endorsement, there’s a lot of people that believe Karamo is in a better position because DePerno made the unforgivable sin of accepting his defeat,” Roe said. “Apparently, even when you get your ass kicked, you are a traitor and a sellout to the cause. But when you look at how the 2022 election unfolded, DePerno was literally the top voice for Trump conspiracy theories in the state, and he had the strongest grassroots following within the election integrity block.”
DePerno appeared the night before the big vote with election denier and pillow pusher Mike Lindell, who claimed during a closed-door caucus meeting that DePerno was cheated out of his race for attorney general, which, of course, he wasn’t.
DePerno backer Raeann Fortin said she liked his plans to hold meetings across the state, not just in major metro areas. “We are one election cycle away from losing our state and country,” said Fortin, a 55-year-old medical intake coordinator from Grand Rapids. “I support Matt because he has plans. He’s been through the election process, running for attorney general. I think he knows what’s best for our state. And he’s an attorney, so who better to have at the helm than someone who knows the constitutional law inside out and backwards?” As for Trump’s endorsement: “It can’t hurt, you know? But he endorsed Tudor for governor, and that didn’t do much.”
Republican strategist Scott Greenlee was sometimes called the only “normal” candidate running for Michigan GOP chair. The traditionalist pick, Greenlee managed to make it to the second round of voting, ultimately finishing third. Greenlee’s association with the establishment status quo may have dimmed his prospects in spite of his otherwise relevant credentials, which include running U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain’s first congressional race.
Asked before the convention why he was causing himself this headache, Greenlee offered the kind of answer he would probably advise one of his clients to give. Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s retirement gives Republicans the opportunity to flip an open Senate seat, raising the stakes of next year’s election. Michigan Republicans haven’t held a Senate seat since Spencer Abraham lost his 2001 reelection. But Michigan elected a Republican governor, Rick Snyder, in 2014.
“I thought to myself, ‘Boy, somehow 2024 just got more important,’ which is hard to believe, because in 2024 Michigan has to deliver for a presidential nominee,” Greenlee said. “The absolute top priority has to be to win the statehouse back. Gov. Whitmer has the full strength of the legislature behind her, and that concerns all conservatives and all Republicans with regard to what the agenda is going to look like the next couple of years.”
Roe, who was the national spokesperson for Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 GOP presidential campaign, believes the party won’t be able to get any statewide candidates elected under the current leadership. “We’ve just got to figure out a way to work around the party and wait these people out,” he said. That probably won’t happen any time soon. “Every two years, the state central committee has gotten more MAGA, and now we’re probably looking at the most MAGA composition.”
But what does it even mean to be MAGA when the defining characteristic of the movement — the blind loyalty to Trump — isn’t there? The delegates waving signs and wearing buttons and shirts proclaiming their support for DePerno and Karamo cared more about battling the “status quo” than about Trump. And at what point does a former president who keeps screwing things up for his party become himself the despised establishment? Karamo didn’t expend a lot of energy trying to rationalize the lack of an endorsement. Instead, she focused on her commitment to empowering the new grassroots, the same thing that Trump did in 2016. She echoed the famous mantra of the former president, saying: “We are committed to every promise that we made.”
And these new delegates were very much in their power at the convention.
With the clock ticking Saturday, a rogue group that appeared to be associated with the election-integrity movement began forcing votes on amendments. “No laptops! No flash drives!” someone yelled from the convention floor, responding to one amendment that would have further reduced the reliance on electronics. Their final stand was a chaotic attempt to try to oust the acting chair. “They’re failing to follow Robert’s Rules,” said Joel Studebaker, one of the delegates leading the charge.
The most revealing aspect of the leadership turnover is who it left behind: Maddock, the GOP activist and power broker known for her close ties to Trump. In 2021, Maddock ran for co-chair with longtime GOP donor Weiser, a fundraiser for George W. Bush and John McCain. Weiser was sought after for his fundraising acumen and money, and Maddock for her connection to the grassroots. As co-chair, Maddock was the gateway to Mar-a-Lago, orchestrating events and endorsements, and using her relationship with the president as currency.
But even Maddock had had enough of being co-chair after two years, revealing in December that she wouldn’t seek another term. In a letter to delegates, Maddock, who rose to prominence as a fixture in the 2020 “Stop the Steal” movement, admitted that it had become nearly impossible to raise money. “There is no special well of funds bubbling up resources for us, and the radical left and their hostile media arm have been very effective at shaming our reliable big donors away from supporting the party,” she wrote.
Maddock attended the convention, keeping a low profile. Weiser was a no-show, as far as people I spoke to could tell. The day of the vote for her successor, Maddock was wearing all black accented with a sparkly MAGA pin. The race for party chair wasn’t the only one on her radar: Her son-in-law Parker Shonts was running for youth chair, and it seemed that Maddock had called in a favor to Lindell, who had recorded an endorsement video. But like Trump’s seal of approval, an endorsement from the founder and CEO of My Pillow isn’t what it used to be. Maddock’s son-in-law lost by a decisive margin in the first round of voting.
It was nearly 8 p.m. when the newly anointed state GOP chair accepted her win. She mentioned neither Maddock, Trump’s top ally in Michigan, nor Weiser, one of Michigan’s most prolific GOP fundraisers. And few people, if any, seemed to care.