Reminder: This is an Internet construction zone. I occasionally futz with and add pages. If text and links suddenly change, that could be me making updates.

Recent and Upcoming Events

New Town Hall on Local Control Issues. Our State Representative, Dave Prestin, (R-Cedar River) will host a town hall discussion on “local control” at the Menominee County Farm Bureau, according to Daily Press. Prestin told the Daily Press that “Our goal is to foster a dialogue that not only highlights relevant challenges on these issues, but also explores innovative approaches to address them.”

• Topics will include aggregate mining, septic codes, and short-term rentals.
• Invitations were sent to state representatives from Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula
• The event will also include an open forum for lawmakers to share insights, discuss potential solutions, and collaborate on methods to better serve their districts.

The meeting is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 9, from 5 to 7 p.m. Central, 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern, at the Menominee County Annex building, S904 US-41, Stephenson, MI 49887.

New RNC and Trump Campaign Running Out of Cash. The Republican National Committee (RNC) is running dangerously short on cash and so is the Trump campaign. The RNC’s most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) showed that as of the end of the year it had $8 million cash on hand and $1.8 million in debts, according to The Dispatch. A candidate’s financial fallback for this usually comes from funds raised by Political Action Committees (PAC). Aaron Blake in a pretty factual article in The Washington Post, reported that “the campaign for the White House also begins with his financial operation — the entities devoted to electing him [PACs]— on pretty shaky ground” because of the tens of millions of dollars being spent on Trump’s legal fees ($55.6 million last year). (You can double check most of this with FEC filings and press reports.) Politico also paints a disturbing picture of all the backstabbing at the RNC’s winter conference.

Menominee County Elections in 2024 This is a busy year for Menominee County elections. We have approximately 115 officials whose terms of office expire this year. This includes county commissioners, judges, school boards, city, township, and village officials as well as numerous precinct delegate positions. I’ve built a new page listing all the offices and incumbents in Menominee County. Please click here to go to the page.

• The filing deadline for the partisan elections this year is Tuesday, April 23^rd at 4:00 p.m. if you are running as Democrat or a Republican.  If NPA it would be July 18^th at 4:00 p.m.
• Nonpartisan elections (School Board, Village and City) would be Tuesday, July 23^rd at 4:00 p.m.
• The Election Insights for Menominee County page pulls together all the various pages and paragraphs that would-be candidates might find useful in planning a run for office.
• The Michiganders’ Top Ten Concerns page shows Michiganders top ten concerns statewide.

Update: Who Is in Charge of the Michigan GOP? We don’t know. An email from Kristina Karamo confirmed news reports that the Republican National Committee (RNC) refused to seat her as the Party’s chair at the winter meeting in Las Vegas from January 30 to February 3. Various news agencies reported that the RNC lawyers’ initial review of the case determined that Karamo had been “properly removed.” The RNC also did not recognize Pete Hoekstra as the new chair, and neither would be credentialed as a voting member but would be allowed to attend as guests. (Fox17, Detroit News, NBC, BridgeMI; The RNC’s letter is posted on Fox17)

• “Following the RNC Winter Meeting, a body of RNC members will move quickly to review this dispute and make such recommendation as they believe appropriate,” wrote Michael Whatley, the RNC’s general counsel, and Matthew Raymer, the RNC’s chief counsel. (Fox17, Detroit News,)

• Critics sued Karamo on Friday, January 24, “in Kent County Circuit Court, asking a judge to resolve the dispute,” according to Bridge Michigan. A hearing on Karamo’s motion to dismiss the case is scheduled for March 15, which is after the Michigan State Convention on March 2.

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News

New MIGOP Finances People who voted to oust Karamo claim that the MIGOP has a negative balance of $100,000 and is $500,000 in debt. This was one of the factors motivating them to dismiss her. Karamo has certainly been elusive about MIGOP’s financial situation. Michigan Advance reported that as of December 2023, MIGOP was $620,000 in debt, and as of January 31, 2024 was overdue on filing its financial report. Failure to meet the deadline may result in fines. This is the link to the Federal Election Commission’s web page for the Michigan Republican Party.

Green Legislation to make Michigan reach a net zero carbon emission goal by 2040. Our State Senator Ed McBroom, our House Representative (108th District) Dave Prestin, and the 110th House Representative Gregory Markkanen hosted on December 19, 2023 a town hall in Escanaba regarding newly passed “green energy legislation” (SB 271, SB 502, SB273,HB 5020/5021). (For details of the meeting, please see Town hall criticizes state’s new energy laws The Daily Press, Dec 22, 2023) They explained why they voted against it and warned of the traumatic consequences of these bills to the Upper Peninsula’s (UP) economy and well being (please see their handout).  My summary of the bills would be:

• The bills require a radical transformation of Michigan’s energy grid just as increasing demands of electric vehicles and other green measures place a greater load on the electrical system and require that we abandon proven all-weather day/night technologies making the power grid more vulnerable.
• SB271 increased the requirements of renewable energy production and clean energy standard.  Requiring Michigan to reach 60 percent renewable energy and 100% clean carbon zero energy by 2040.
• The bills would raise UP energy costs because to meet the new standards, Upper Michigan Energy Resources (UMERC) will need to either construct new power generation capacity, build transmission lines to renewable energy projects, or purchase renewable energy credits. 
• The new energy standards will apply to UMERC before the end of the useful life of our existing new natural gas power plants implying that UP electric power customers will need to pay for the investments UMERC made in these plants even if the plants are not operating.
• The UP has a fragile economy and the significant increase in energy costs these bills probably will  hurt the economy.

Each legislator focused on a different Michigan-related approach. International climate issues also were raised. For your information, I wrote an opinion piece from the international perspective. The simple bottom line: Eliminating Michigan jobs and industry will move the businesses to Asia. It will not help the climate but will slightly help the Communist Party of China.

Chaos in Republican Party Creating Conservative Alternatives. With all the chaos in Michigan’s GOP, a lot of voters are looking for alternatives other than Republicans or Democrats. This is a nationwide phenomenon. The conservative news website National Review, had an interesting article about an alternative Republican party in San Fransisco, the Briones Society. Please see Revenge of the Normies: Effort to Revive San Francisco GOP Leads to Leadership Clash, or the Briones website.

Analytic piece: Michiganders’ Top Ten Concerns Click here

New Webpage: Election Insights for Menominee County pulls together all the various pages and paragraphs that would-be candidates might find useful in planning a run for office.

Opinion Piece: MIGOP Strategy for 2024 Gaining the “Dozen” Percent Please click here for the article.

In the National and State News

This section is intended to highlight news articles and opinion pieces in national news sources that bear upon Republican Party affairs and upcoming elections, particularly 2024 presidential.

Trumpers vs. Traditionalists: Michigan GOP Split Echoes National Divide Populist Trump loyalists have taken leading roles, clashing with chamber-of-commerce types who used to run state Republican parties, The Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2023

Polls

• Social Conservatism in U.S. Highest in About a Decade, Gallup Poll
• Latest GOP Primary Polls, Real Clear Polls, constantly updated.
• Latest Polls GOP presidential primary 2024, FiveThirtyEight, constantly updated.
• 2024 GOP Primary Tracker, Morning Consult, constantly updated.
• 2024 Republican Primary Polling, Race to the WH, constantly updated
• DEMOCRATIC PARTY ELECTION SURVEY, A Strategy for Factory Towns.
• REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY SURVEY, Conducted by Dynata, January 16-21, 2023. This polling group gets a B/C rating for accuracy from the FiveThirtyEight web site.

Links to other analysis

• Analysis of the 2022 General Election in Menominee County. This section examines some aspects of the voting process in Menominee County and the outcomes in the county of the elections for governor, secretary of state, attorney general, proposals 1, 2, and 3, and the legislators for the 108th, 38th and 1st Districts.