In a bombshell story, CNN outlines the utter failure and fracturing of the Michigan Republican Party
LANSING — In case you missed it, yesterday, CNN released a detailed report on the Michigan GOP’s overwhelming downward spiral under Chair Kristina Karamo, highlighting her numerous detractors, failed events, closed-door meetings, and financial crises. We’ve been shouting it from the rooftops, and now the MIGOP’s MAGA mayhem has garnered more national attention.
CNN’s piece details never-before-seen evidence that even those who once supported Karamo are now questioning her leadership. “Incompetent dumpster fire,” “a disaster,” “on the verge of bankruptcy,” and “pushed the grassroots away” are just a few of the many complaints coming from within the party, and it’s easy to see why. Between staging an underwhelming and embarrassing convention, driving the party into financial ruin, and deeply fracturing key factions ahead of 2024, chaos now defines everything about Karamo’s MIGOP.
More Republicans than ever are criticizing leadership and are pushing to oust Karamo, but we know that won’t fix the rot of the MIGOP. We’ve said it many times, but take it from CNN’s conversation with a source close to the Trump campaign: “[they] described the current Michigan GOP as a mess and did not indicate any sort of loyalty to Karamo, noting that most of the Michigan Republicans who could replace her were also pro-Trump.” That’s right: even Trump’s allies know that ousting Karamo would only do away with one member of the radical right. The Michigan Republican Party is fundamentally broken, and filled with extremists as far as the eye can see.
Our summary just scratches the surface – take a look at the full list of highlights from CNN below:
CNN: ‘Incompetent dumpster fire’: Michigan GOP rocked by financial turmoil and infighting
- A CNN review of documents and interviews with more than 20 current and former party officials shows the Republican Party in this key battleground state has become entangled in financial turmoil, infighting and calls for new leadership less than a year before the 2024 presidential election…
- Now, some of the pro-Trump party members who voted Karamo into office have soured on her leadership and accuse her administration of working to destroy the party by failing to fundraise and sparking division among the party rank-and-file…
- “If I would have known that Kristina Karamo would have turned out to be such a tyrannical incompetent dumpster fire I would never have worked so hard to get her elected. For that I apologize,” wrote Dawn Beattie, a state committee member, in an email sent last month to fellow Republicans and obtained by CNN.
- The dire state of the party’s finances, which has generated negative headlines in local outlets including The Detroit News for months, was recently summarized in a report that concluded Karamo had pushed the organization to “the brink of bankruptcy.” The report, commissioned by Carpenter, a former party district chair, and shared with CNN, included internal records that suggest the party had a net income of just $71,000 between March and November and had more than $600,000 in debt as of last month…
- The former budget chair issued a statement in June that said the party’s “spending was so far out of proportion with income as to put us on the path to bankruptcy” and that “efforts to implement responsible spending limits were met with adamant opposition from Chair Karamo and the small circle of operatives around her…”
- “You want a state party that is firing on all cylinders, and then you want a strong candidate who can win,” said Doug Heye, a GOP strategist and former communications director for the Republican National Committee. “If you have an issue with either of those two, that can be one of the things that tips the scales for a race.”
- Karamo and local party leaders have now plunged into a web of bitter conspiracy theories aimed at one another. Some of her detractors allege Karamo is part of a malicious plot, while her defenders make such allegations about her critics…
- “It’s not that I don’t like her. What she’s doing, on the other hand, is rather insidious,” said Andy Sebolt, chair of the party’s second district who also chaired the state party’s policy committee until recently when Karamo had him removed after he said he pushed for more transparency.
- “We should have a fighting chance in the state of Michigan to award our electors to a Republican. … With this chaos and alienation of other Republicans, we don’t stand that chance,” he said.
###
