Dem
51
GOP
49
Michigan was ground zero for Trumpy Republicans. Tudor Dixon lost the gubernatorial race, Matthew DePerno was defeated for attorney general, and Kristina Karamo lost her race for secretary of state. All three were endorsed by Donald Trump. But unlike Arizona, where the Democrats also secured the triplex, Democrats also flipped the state legislature in Michigan.
So what are the three big losers in Michigan going to do? Start their own podcasts so they can continue ranting about how Trump was cheated in 2020? Nope. They all want to become the chair of the Michigan Republican Party so they can recruit more like-minded candidates who will probably also go down, as they did. The chair will be elected at a party convention in February. The losers will presumably say the election was rigged and they were cheated.
Normally party chairs aren't so visible or important outside internal party affairs. However, because there are no Republicans in state offices in Michigan and the speaker of the state House, the majority leader of the state Senate and both U.S. senators are Democrats, the chair of the state party is nominally the highest-ranking Republican in the state. This means he or she will represent the state party to the media and the national party. And to have a very Trumpy chair just at the moment the national party is (cautiously) trying to rid itself of Trump is going to be a problem. If one of the Trumpists wins the job, this will surely inspire some of the Trumpy losers in other states to attempt to take over the state party there as well. In a few cases, it may be tricky. For example, Mehmet Oz will have to decide if he wants to run the New Jersey Republican Party, where he lives, or the Pennsylvania Republican Party, where he campaigned. But more likely he will go back to being a quack hawking worthless supplements to the rubes.
Establishment Republicans in Michigan are hoping for a white knight—a sane Republican who can unite all factions of the party. A couple of names have been bandied about, but so far no moderate Republican has announced a run. Lavora Barnes, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said the "biggest gift the Republicans can continue to give us is infighting within the state party and nominating candidates who are crazy and right of crazy."
RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel has formed a commission to write an autopsy report on why the Republicans did so poorly in the midterms. Michigan beat her to it. A state party memo analyzing the situation was already circulating a few days after the midterms. It said that Donald Trump was very popular among the grassroots but not so popular with independents and women. This is less succinct way of describing what Mitch McConnell called "candidate quality." What the Michigan GOP concluded was that grassroots voters, with Trump's encouragement, picked candidates who were popular with the base but incapable of winning a general election. Brilliant analysis. Who knew? What the memo didn't specify is how the Party can fix the problem. (V)