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Who’s the current chair of the Michigan Republican Party? It might seem like a rather straightforward question, but answering it is proving to be quite tricky.
A few weeks ago, state GOP officials voted to oust Kristina Karamo as the head of the state party. Karamo said she didn’t recognize the legitimacy of that vote and insisted that she remained the chair of the Michigan Republican Party. Eventually, Republican National Committee lawyers were brought in and determined that Karamo was “properly removed” from her post.
The RNC did not, however, officially recognize the apparent new chair — former Rep. Pete Hoekstra — and as The Detroit Free Press reported over the weekend, Karamo isn’t accepting the RNC’s findings, either.
A Michigan Republican backer of Kristina Karamo sent a strongly worded letter to the Republican National Committee Friday, pushing back on the RNC’s preliminary view that Karamo had been “properly removed” as state party chair. “Kristina Karamo is the MIGOP chair despite all the drama,” wrote Jim Copas, the Michigan Republican Party executive director under Karamos.
Complicating matters a bit more is Donald Trump’s intervention in the mess.
For those who might benefit from a refresher, in the 2022 elections, Karamo ran for Michigan secretary of state campaign as a notorious election denier. She was also known for sharing concerns about “demonic possession” — which the Republican said can spread from person to person through intimate relationships — spreading Jan. 6 conspiracy theories, rejecting vaccines, condemning evolutionary biology, and suggesting that cohabitation before marriage opens the door to normalizing pedophilia.
She lost by 14 points.
Trump nevertheless urged Michigan Republicans to make Karamo the state party chair, and local officials followed the former president’s instructions. That hasn’t worked out well for the Michigan GOP.
And so, Trump now appears to be abandoning Karamo — the one who got the job because she enjoyed the former president’s backing — and instead rallying behind Hoekstra, whom some Michigan Republicans now consider to be the current chair.
In fact, Trump published a missive praising Hoekstra to his social media platform, telling Republicans in the Wolverine State that he’ll do a great job — which, oddly enough, is what he also said about Karamo.
As for the former congressman, if his name sounds at all familiar, there’s a good reason for that.
Circling back to our earlier coverage, Hoekstra has long been a curious figure in GOP politics, and regular readers might recall a 2017 incident in which the former congressman became the butt of jokes after making some strange claims about the Netherlands — and then getting caught lying about it to a Dutch news outlet.
But even more importantly, Hoekstra developed a reputation during his congressional career of mishandling sensitive information, despite having led the House Intelligence Committee.
All of which is to say, the Michigan Republican Party is either led by an election denier who has odd thoughts about demons, or a former congressman who was credibly accused of leaking like a sieve. Trump supported the former, but now prefers the latter.
The RNC’s winter meeting begins this week, and the party has told both Karamo and Hoekstra that neither one will be seated as the Michigan Republican Party’s representative at the gathering. The "drama" will continue.