DETROIT – You might think Michigan Republicans would be looking forward to next year’s national elections. After all, the party that controls the White House normally does poorly in the off-year elections that follow. Just look at recent history:
Back in 2010, two years into President Obama’s first term, Republicans won every top statewide office – governor, secretary of state and attorney general, and made huge gains in the legislature.
Then in 2018, two years after President Trump took office, Democrats were even more successful. Not only did they win all the top jobs, including a U.S. Senate seat, they picked up two seats in Congress that had been previously held by Republicans.
So now that the Democrats are back in power in Washington, will Republicans again romp to victory in Michigan in 2022?
Ah … maybe not.
For Michigan Republicans have big, big problems — some of their own making, and some due to a constitutional change.
First, let’s deal with the self-inflicted wounds: Ronald Reagan, who most Republicans revere as sort of a secular saint, used to say the GOP should abide by what he called the “eleventh commandment:” Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.
Apparently that commandment has been repealed by Michigan Republicans. At the GOP state convention Feb. 6, Michigan’s outgoing state party chair, Laura Cox, essentially called the man who wanted to succeed her, Ron Weiser, a crook.
She claimed that Weiser, a wealthy real estate investor who has been GOP chair before, used state party funds to make huge payoffs to two men in order to get them not to run for offices where he had other candidates he preferred.
Weiser denied that, said it was a “smear,” and the delegates elected him anyway. But records show that Stan Grot, a local clerk in Macomb County got $200,000 in 2018, and then suddenly dropped out of a battle for the Republican nomination for Secretary of State.
Scott Hagerstrom, an attorney with strong ties to the Tea Party movement, got $81,500. The GOP’s chief financial officer said he bragged to her that he was “being paid $80,000 by the state party to do nothing.” Apparently, Weiser, a longtime player behind the scenes, didn’t want Hagerstrom to make a bid for party chair.
Neither man had a contract with the GOP, which other vendors did. Weiser claimed they were consultants. Incidentally, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is now attempting to get Hagerstrom disbarred for improper conduct connected with efforts to overturn the results of last year’s presidential election.
Because of what she thought was clearly unethical, if not illegal, behavior, Cox, who had earlier dropped a bid to be reelected party chair, changed her mind and begged delegates to reelect her, promising she would resign after the mess was cleared up.
When that failed, she shocked her fellow Republicans by going to the Secretary of State — a Democrat — and asking for an investigation of what she said were improper violations of Michigan Campaign Finance Law. No matter how this ends, it’s unlikely to help the GOP. The bad news, however, doesn’t stop there:
While both Weiser and Cox are strong Trump supporters, two of the state’s seven Republican congressmen voted to impeach the President – Fred Upton of Kalamazoo, the state’s currently longest-serving congressman, and Peter Meijer of Grand Rapids, a freshman and heir to a Michigan grocery chain.
Trump loyalists are furious, but the numbers show suburban Republicans in places like Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo flocked to President Biden last November, giving him a statewide victory.
Those splits may eventually heal, but the GOP has two other problems. Though Republicans have complained bitterly about Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, especially the restrictions she imposed on businesses to fight the pandemic, the most recent polls show that 59 percent of Michigan voters approve of her job performance.
That could, of course, change dramatically by next year’s election. But the GOP has another problem: No top-tier candidate has emerged to take Governor Whitmer on.
Nor have any top-tier Republicans come forth to challenge Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson or Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, both of whom are also popular.
None of the state’s congressmen seem interested in running. Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, of Jackson County, had talked about running for governor – until a bizarre video surfaced last week. In it, Shirkey is seen talking about “spanking” the governor, a small woman, and perhaps challenging her to a fist fight on the state capitol lawn.
The senator also claimed that the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. was “a hoax,” and said those who participated were not Trump supporters. After it leaked, he said: “I frankly don’t take back any of the points I was trying to make.”
Finally, Republicans face one more giant hurdle: Redistricting. Every state has to draw new legislative and congressional boundaries after each census. Currently, Michigan’s are so gerrymandered that Democrats regularly win a majority of the legislative vote cast but get only a small minority of the seats. But that’s about to end.
Thanks to a state constitutional amendment, those boundaries will be drawn by a commission of average citizens, and based on common community interests, not politics.
That will almost certainly give Democrats more seats. Things can always dramatically change, but for Michigan Republicans, this is a winter of foreboding — and deep discontent.
PS: Republicans may be lucky about one thing: There is no race for U.S. Senate in Michigan next year. In senate races in the half-century since 1972, Republicans have racked up an astounding record of futility, losing 15 out of 16 times.
-30-
