Michigan Republicans, fresh off losing the state legislature (and every statewide race) for the first time in 40 years, turned to the most extreme of the far-right, election-denying, Trump-supporting candidates to lead them. Kristina Karamo might just be the biggest whack job around, making other election deniers like Kari Lake look relatively sane by comparison. Michigan voters didn’t think too much of her, as she lost the secretary of state election by a whopping 14 points to Jocelyn Benson, an unusually large margin. And of course, she refused to concede. That’s just not how she rolls.
And how bad are things for Michigan’s Republican Party? They couldn’t afford to rent the Lansing Center, so they charged a delegate entry fee of $75 at the convention door, $50 if paid in advance.
“We will not betray you; we will not lie to you,” Karamo said in a brief victory speech as convention delegates were hustled out of the Lansing Center. The cash-strapped state party had only paid to rent the hall until late afternoon. Officials extended the arrangement until 8 p.m. but told delegates they had to leave quickly after the third ballot.
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Long considered an organizational and fundraising juggernaut, the Michigan Republican Party took a historic shellacking in the November election, losing every statewide office and losing control of the Michigan Senate for the first time in 40 years. So dismal are the party’s finances that delegates to this weekend’s convention, in a historic first, were charged a convention entry fee — $50 if paid in advance or $75 at the convention door.
Delegates hurriedly picked up the garbage before leaving to ensure they weren’t charged extra for cleaning.
Source: Washington Post
LANSING, Mich. — Republicans here, reeling from a midterm election rout that many blamed on the influence of former president Donald Trump, responded Saturday by spurning the former president’s choice for state party chair — and choosing someone even more extreme.
Kristina Karamo, who refused to concede her 14-point loss for secretary of state in 2022, beat former attorney general candidate Matt DePerno, who had Trump’s endorsement, in three rounds of contentious voting. The chaotic 11-hour convention, featuring a rowdy standoff over voting procedures and 10 candidates who all ran under a pro-Trump banner, left no doubt that the bulk of the party’s activists in this key battleground state remain firmly committed to election denial and showed no interest in moderating their message to appeal to the political center.
“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.
The outcome also dealt a tactical defeat to Trump, even though all the candidates competed for aligning themselves with him. Many delegates said they discounted or even resented Trump’s involvement in the race, especially after a midterm cycle that saw widespread wrangling over his down-ballot endorsements in the state.
Refusing to concede an election when you lose in a blow-out is pretty inane, but that’s the least of it for Kristina Karamo.
Here are some of her recent greatest hits.
