GRAND RAPIDS – Michigan’s GOP loyalists on Saturday backed two political outsiders backed by former President Donald Trump to serve as the next chief of staff in the state election and a senior law enforcement official.
After months of fighting for the party’s future direction, Republican delegates backed a professor in Oak Park as secretary of state, and preliminary results in the attorney general’s run-off showed Kalamazoo’s lawyer Matt Depernoy defeating former House Speaker Tom Leonard.
Neither DePerno nor Caramo had previously held office, but the couple rose to national prominence after the 2020 election over baseless allegations of widespread fraud and vote-rigging.
In addition to supporting the former president, Deperno and Caramo also secured the support of Michigan GOP co-chair Meshon Maddock. Party leaders usually stay away from contested contests. Maddock’s unusual interference in the race angered some Republicans, including candidates who said they had promised it would remain neutral.
At a rally in Macomb County for DePerno and Caramo, Maddock called on her party members to “unite” and “reflect” their differences in order to unite behind the candidates approved by the convention.
But the convention seems to have highlighted deep divisions in the party after the chief prosecutor’s race was forced into a bitter run-off between Deperno and Leonard.
Voters supporting both candidates faced each other on the congressional platform before the vote. DePerno supporters chanted “Let’s go, DePerno,” one sounded a siren on its megaphone, and others applauded on shuttles bearing DePerno’s name.
In the first round of voting, Depernoy received 49% of the congressional vote, while Leonard received 40%. State Representative Ryan Berman received 11% of the vote and quickly backed Leonard before the runoff. The results of the runoff here.
After accepting her party’s approval, Caramo encouraged delegates to support DePerno in the runoff. Berman seemed to be trying to get on stage, but was rejected.
In the runoff, Depernoy secured 55% of the congressional vote against 45% of Leonard, preliminary results showed.
The vote lasted more than an hour and a half after the congress had to be postponed. Delegates said it was the longest congress they could remember attending. At one point, voting was suspended due to an error in the order of the contests that appeared on the screen to direct the vote, which originally showed the Attorney General’s race as the last race when it was the first contest on the ballot.
More: Michigan appeals court rulings against DePerno’s efforts to revive election fraud case
Also: Michigan’s primary vote could be a “disaster” for Republican gubernatorial candidates, the expert says
Caramo was seen as the clear favorite in her race against Chesterfield clerk Cindy Berry – the only candidate with experience as an election administrator – and US representative Bo Lafav, R-Iron Mountain. On Saturday, she sailed for victory to gain her party’s approval, winning nearly 70% of the congressional vote. After accepting her party’s approval, Caramo encouraged delegates to support DePerno in the runoff. Berman seemed to be trying to get on stage, but was rejected.
Political observers anticipated the attorney general’s close race and called it a test of Trump’s strength in the party.
Candidates fighting Trump’s election say DePerno and Caramo face a better chance of winning in the fall than other Republican candidates. Some Republicans have said the moderate and democratic voters needed to win a swing state election will dismiss Deperno and Caramo as too extreme.
Beth Antor, a 54-year-old delegate from Sparta, said she would support DePerno and Caramo, but was not sure her two preferred candidates would receive the support of sufficiently independent and democratic voters.
“I have no idea what they will do, but the fact that the conservative mass base is waking up, I like that,” she said.
“I don’t want someone in the middle. I don’t want to vote for it.”
Greg Ward, a 51-year-old delegate and supporter of Leonard, expressed reservations about Deperno’s candidacy.
“I understand that this is a party convention, but it is negative and Trump is forever, and I don’t know if these are winning tickets in November,” he said.
DePerno may even be struggling to win some members of his own party. Jessica Nieto, a 37-year-old Taylor delegate who backed Leonard, said she was unsure she could vote for DePerno in November, calling his personal attacks “uncomfortable” for her party. The Attorney General’s race is largely determined by “muddy mud from one candidate to another, that’s funny to me,” she said.
U.S. Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, who is leading an investigation by the U.S. Senate oversight committee into the 2020 election, which debunks allegations that the vote was rife with widespread fraud, suggests DePerno and Karamo’s approval will put the party his on the way to defeat the general election.
Speaking outside the voting hall minutes before delegates began voting, he said the approval of the two Trump-backed candidates would signal that “the majority of people here would prefer to send a very strong message about what they want and the message they want.” to deliver to the party and the nation instead of winning the November election. “
The GOP rally over the weekend in Grand Rapids marked the party’s first convention of its kind. Republicans hoped this would unite Republicans and boost the campaigns of elected candidates months before the by-elections.
Some said the internal debate was inevitable. David Robbins, a 56-year-old deputy congressional delegate, said “after all, the boxing match is with the Democrats in November.”
“When you’re training for a boxing match, you have to spar, you have to sweat, you have to bleed,” he said.
The party will meet again in August for another convention in which delegates from the GOP section – the lowest-ranked Republicans elected, who are essentially the party’s base – will formally nominate candidates for the November vote. The August congress will include delegates newly elected during the primary elections.
Michigan is one of the few states that nominates nominees for senior positions across the state at party conventions instead of primary elections. Nominations for governor, congressional and state legislatures will be made by voters in the August 2 primary.
DePerno secures support from Republican Party after Attorney General’s race sees brutal personal attacks
DePerno became famous in 2020 when he represented a resident of Antrim County in a lawsuit that served as a means of promoting conspiracies over electronic voting machines used to tab ballot papers. Antrim County, a Republican village stronghold, was the site of an official error that briefly led to an inaccurate report on unofficial election night results. The Michigan Court of Justice on Thursday upheld the first-instance court’s ruling dismissing DePerno’s lawsuit. Deperno promised to appeal the decision to the Michigan Supreme Court.
Trump won Antrim County, and a manual ballot count there confirmed that the voting machines accurately tabulated the results.
But Trump has taken advantage of a refuted report in support of the DePerno case to falsely claim that his election was stolen. He cited the report in detail in a draft executive order to order the military to confiscate voting machines that have never been issued.
Throughout the campaign, Deperno repeatedly attacked Leonard as a Republican in the establishment and sought Leonard’s dismissal from his private advocacy, suggesting that his opponent had access to privileged information provided by Deperno as a client of Leonard’s firm.
In a letter to Leonard’s employer, DePerno said he kept the law firm in response to an investigation by the Michigan Attorney’s Complaints Commission into his Antrim County case. The commission has the power to initiate disciplinary proceedings that may revoke the licenses of Michigan lawyers to practice in the state.
A comprehensive report on the 2020 election by the GOP-led Senate State Oversight Committee also called on the Attorney General’s Office to investigate “those who used misleading and false information about Antrim County to raise money or publicity for their own purposes. “. Subsequently, the office of Attorney General Dana Nessel launched an investigation. Nessel identified Depernoy as a potential target of the investigation, but said her office had set up a firewall to prevent her from participating in the investigation against her political opponent.
Depert has repeatedly promised to investigate and prosecute Nessel along with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. He alleges that Michigan’s three top Democrats misbehaved. Berman and Leonard denied his statements as unethical.
But the candidates agreed on other issues during the election campaign.
All three called for an end to the Whitmer administration’s legal efforts to close Line 5 to prevent a spill or leakage of the double pipeline and oil pipeline to the Great Lakes. All three also advertised themselves as opponents of abortion rights, a potentially key issue in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the important 1973 Rowe v. Wade ruling.
The decision overturned a 1931 Michigan law that made almost any abortion a crime. Leonard was the only candidate in the race who said he would enforce the law but would not prosecute pregnant women who want abortions.
Caramo received tremendous support among Republicans
Candidates fighting Karamo say she has a good chance of winning the November election, expecting moderate and democratic voters to reject her.
But Caramo got a startling …
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