The Michigan GOP selected a far-right election denier to lead, underscoring a deep divide within the Republican Party as leaders hope for more success in the 2024 election.
Kristina Karamo won her election to lead Michigan Republicans last weekend. She beat former attorney general candidate Matt DePerno, the choice of former President Donald Trump, who backed several candidates in the 2022 midterm elections who failed to win their contests.
The Michigan GOP election was poised to “set the tone for the party as it tries to win back Michigan for statewide office and also for the ‘24 presidential election,” Ken Kollman, director of the University of Michigan Center for Political Studies, said in an interview with the Hill.
Kollman said that a win from either Karamo or DePerno would be a “big statement and a big challenge” for the Republican Party heading into 2024.
Karamo’s victory showed how deeply ingrained beliefs of election denial are in the state’s top GOP leaders. The newly elected party chairwoman has still not conceded her 14-point 2022 loss for secretary of state, and she gave no indication that her approach to the chairperson position will be any different.
“Conceding to a fraudulent person is agreeing with the fraud, which I will not do,” Karamo said to cheers in her campaign speech on Saturday, per the Washington Post.
Karamo and DePerno ran with Trump’s backing in 2022 but lost their elections. Theirs followed similar losses in high-profile elections in Arizona, with Senate candidate Blake Masters and gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. Lake is another candidate who continued to deny her election loss. She filed several lawsuits challenging the vote count.
Karamo’s vision for the state GOP is for “the corrupt and ineffective” party to transition to “high-efficiency electing” and eliminating the “co-conspirator relationship” with Democrats, according to her vision statement.
She said “authentic unity” would be achieved by “adhering to the Republican Party platform, not by expecting people to tolerate corruption.”
Democrats won several statewide races and gained control of both legislative chambers in Michigan, the latter occurring for the first time since the 1980s. Now, the legislature is pushing out legislation at a rapid pace with the support of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI).
“Gone, will be MRP leaders who enable Michigan’s ruin due to their blinding-infatuation with political ambition and power!” the statement reads. “Because our election system is corrupt, we do not know who won/lost the 2022 midterms … which is why Kristina will NEVER concede the Secretary of State race.”
Despite a lack of Republicans in high-level state positions, Karamo will now be the public face of the Michigan GOP, a challenge for donors who do not align with the more extreme members of the party.
“There’s a number of … deep-pocketed donors that are not interested in funding election denialism as a big message of the party,” Kollman said.
The election also shows Michigan GOP leaders are taking a step away from other Republican states and the national party. Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who recently won reelection after a contentious campaign, ran on a platform to move the party forward and away from claims of election and voter fraud.
In Massachusetts, Amy Carnevale defeated GOP Chairman Jim Lyons in a 37-34 vote. She said in an interview with CommonWealth magazine that the election was a “signal that our party is going to take a different track moving ahead.”
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Carnevale and Lyons said they voted for Trump in the past two elections. Carnevale said she is remaining neutral at this time, but Lyons said he probably would vote for Trump a third time.
“We’re a divided party,” Lyons said to the magazine. “The past is trying to grab on to what we took over, and they don’t want to let go. I think, moving forward, the people of Massachusetts have to decide whether they want to see a conservative Republican Party.”
