Fighting Republicans in Michigan are Broke
Earlier this month, a violent brawl erupted at a Michigan Republican State Committee Meeting, when some party members tried to lock out other party members from the proceeding, and committee members began to physically fight over the leadership abilities of their new chairperson. You can read the full story here:
Now, more details have emerged concerning what was actually discussed behind closed doors at the meeting. According to The Detroit News, the leadership team of Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Kristina Karamo updated the state GOP committee on the party's budget. Karamo informed participants that the Michigan Republican Party only has about $93,000 in its bank accounts, 16 months before the November 2024 Presidential Election.
Considering that Michigan was considered a Republican stronghold just a few years ago, the state Republican Party is not only failing in terms of uniting the party, but has very little cash on hand to take back pivotal seats in 2024. According to a participant at that meeting, in addition to all of the verbal and physical altercations, there was a "Festivus-style airing of grievances" among members who were allowed to attend the meeting, and serious questioning as to how the party would be able to pay off its debts.
“What I will confirm right now is that we have $93,231.90 in our accounts," the state committee's budget chairman, Dan Bonamie, said at one point during the July 8 meeting. "We have not taken loans out. We are working on the debt.” Dan Hartman, general counsel for the state party, had explained at the state committee meeting in June that the Michigan Republican Party had previously been "threatened with default" on a loan.
“Yes, we know we need a lot more money," Karamo told the state committee, as she continued to keep people out of the meeting. "But we have been and will continue to be transparent.” The urge for some leaders within the party to keep some other members out of the meeting is suddenly making sense, considering the sobering news that the Michigan Republicans are in such financial trouble.
According to Jeff Timmer, a former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party, $93,000 wouldn't have covered rent, payroll and utilities for a month when he was there from 2005 to 2009. Concerning the lack of funds, Timmer said, “That could sound like a lot to the casual observer, but that means they’re functionally bankrupt." He also confirmed that in the past, the state party would have more than a dozen employees by this time in a two-year election cycle, to prepare for the upcoming election.
Former Michigan Republican Party officials have also noted that compared with what the state GOP raised in the past and what it takes to fund the party's operations, this current total is seriously troubling. But, despite the lack of income, Chairwoman Karamo has not suffered a pay cut — she told the room during the June meeting that her team had three paid employees, including herself.
Former Michigan House Speaker Tom Leonard, who served as the Michigan State Republican Budget Chair in 2009 and 2010, confirmed that the party needs to raise between $30 million and $40 million each election cycle in order to successfully fund their endeavors. "If the party is serious about winning, they should have between $4 million and $6 million cash on hand [at this point, a year before the election]," Leonard said.
The financial problems have only been compounded by a recent June 11 court finding in which a judge ordered that Party Chairperson Karamo and members pay more than $58,000 in legal fees incurred by the Detroit Clerk’s Office to fight a lawsuit challenging absentee voting in Detroit. The order explained that the frivolous lawsuit, in which Karamo was the lead plaintiff, was “rife with speculation, an absence of facts and a lack of understanding of Michigan election statutes and Detroit absentee ballot procedures.”
When she was campaigning for her seat, Karamo promised to "expand the donor pool by creating a decentralized fundraising system that obtains funding from approximately 500,000 likely-Republican business owners, rather than a handful of millionaire/billionaire class political operatives," according to a December 2023 statement.
In response to the loss of every statewide office and full control of the state government for the first time in nearly 40 years, Michigan Republicans elected Karamo as chairwoman. She is the first Black person to lead the state party.
Karamo has also made many bizarre and controversial comments in the last few years. She once claimed that Beyoncé was secretly recruiting Black Americans to Paganism through a new album. She has also argued that “demonic possession is real” and transferred via “intimate relationships” and that acceptance of gay and transgender Americans will lead to the acceptance of pedophilia. Karamo has also said she doesn’t believe in vaccines – saying she won’t vaccinate her children and has only taken one vaccine herself.
Karamo previously stated that the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement are “Marxist witches” and that the theory of evolution is “one of the biggest scams ran on us in human history.” She has compared abortion to Pagan child sacrifice and the media to Nazi Germany, saying media rhetoric will lead to Republicans being rounded up, killed and put in concentration camps.
The true level of debt for the party is also something that the public is not able to gage. During the GOP meeting on July 8, Karamo and members of her team didn't detail how much money they've raised or spent this year or how much debt the Michigan Republican Party carried over from the 2022 election. In March, she told a group in Muskegon County that the party had $460,000 in debt.
Karamo called another special meeting on July 8 to address the financial concerns, but reports of that meeting mirrored dodging tactics similar to the June meeting. During the July 8 meeting, Republicans argued over whether the event should be opened or closed to people who weren't on the state committee, which included about 100 people. Karamo kept the meeting closed, saying, "This is a party matter that needs to be dealt with in-house." There is still no conclusive report on the total, actual debt of the Michigan Republican Party.
As Karamo continues to deflect urgent questions about the lack of money and tries to regulate the attendance of her special meetings, one thing is clear: the choice to elect an outsider to shake-up the state party, after a string of lost elections has not paid off. Interestingly, the person who focused on spreading outlandish conspiracy theories in order to get elected is now blaming social media for her fundraising failures. During her July 8 meeting, in which she was supposed to clarify the financial distress of Michigan Republicans, Karamo told members, "Maybe, if you got off social media, we might really beat Democrats.”
Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter, is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and an analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.
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Wow. It couldn't happen to a more unworthy bunch of people. It's about time.
Go, Democrats! Keep up the good work!
Since arriving here in 1987, the MI Republican Party has been morally and spiritually bankrupt.