There are nearly a dozen candidates competing for the Michigan GOP chair. The current chairman, Ron Weiser is not running for re-election nor is the co-chair Meshawn Maddock running for chair. Many other candidates seem to be cropping up every day, and the field is chaotic. Former congressman and ambassador Pete Hoekstra considered a candidacy then in early December declined to run.

Issues to Consider

Most people probably know little about the duties of the party chair and co-chair so before I list the candidates’ webpages, the official job description is vague (see below) so I’d like to highlight various commentaries about the duties of the office. This section is food for thought and I do not want to criticize or endorse individual candidates.

After spending the afternoon researching and building this page, there are several issues I should highlight. The party chair must organize and communicate to millions of voters. Bear in mind that in 2020, some 2.6 million Michiganders spread over an area larger than many countries, voted for the Republican presidential candidate. Several MIGOP candidates understand so little about the need for mass communication that they don’t even have a credible Facebook page to announce and explain their candidacy. I don’t want to sound like everything must be done with computers and the Internet, but how does the party chair in Lansing communicate effectively with party faithful in Copper Harbor, Keweenaw County or us in Menominee with out it? Hopefully, the candidates will improve as their campaign progresses. Other candidates seem to be professional failed politicians who have run and lost numerous elections over many years. How could they effectively guide the party to victory in 2024?

Meshawn Maddock, Co-Chair Michigan Republican Party sent out a thoughtful letter on the chair’s duties and provides some background on state party challenges. The letter is very America First partisan, but she provides first hand details of the party’s financial plight. The chair’s key duty is run the party so it can help elect our candidates, which includes a lot of fundraising. My condensed extract of that discussion is:

• “…have they ever run a winning campaign? … We need people involved as leaders who have run actual competitive races….
• “Good people may still make a bad Chair. We need more than someone with the right motives. We also need someone who can competently do the job. And that job is primarily fundraising a lot of money to keep the Party operating. Just to hold our statutory conventions and state committee meetings will cost about $1.3 million this next Presidential cycle. To keep the essential staff will cost 3/4 million more.
• The new Chairman will walk in on day one with no bank account flush with money for any of that or for lawsuits, insurance, utilities, data, etc. That money doesn’t even include the cost of winning...
• If a Chair candidate tells you they can raise the necessary funds for the party, make sure you know exactly how they will do that. Being wealthy is great, but is a candidate willing to commit a specific amount of their personal wealth? ? Can they demonstrate that they have successfully fundraised a large amount in the past?…
• One of the major reasons I didn’t want to run for Chair is that I saw how much money would be necessary to bring to the party on day one. Ron Weiser gets beat up a lot by the grassroots, but he’s been the only person with that kind of wealth who would even give America First people the time of day. Weiser put in over 7 million of his personal money, and he paid a personal price for that.
• And it won’t be easier to fund the State Party off smaller donations or by requiring delegates to fund the party. There are thousands of delegates, but getting each of them to donate an average of $1500 per quarter (or even per year) is an idea proposed by one candidate who has clearly never done actual fundraising. Most of the hardworking delegates I know could never afford $500 a month to fund the party, maybe not even $500 a year.
• Realistically we need big donors, and there are many things standing in our way to get their support.”

Candidates Speak

Listed below is my best estimate of who is running with links to pages and websites where the candidates explain their qualifications and motivations. I’ll update this as I get better information. Fox47 News and MLive have brief biographies of the candidates. Candidates are listed in alphabetical order by surname.

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