MIDLAND, Mich. — Long-simmering divisions within the Michigan Republican Party have spilled into public view in recent days, exposing a rift over how far to go in embracing former president Donald Trump’s false claims about election fraud and raising fears within the party that it won’t be able to unify before the November midterms.
The immediate trigger for the escalating feud came last weekend, when the party nominated a pair of leading proponents of Trump’s stolen-election theories for two of the state’s top offices.
The selection at the state convention of Matthew DePerno for attorney general and Kristina Karamo for secretary of state proved to be a breaking point for some in the party establishment, which has been waging a sustained struggle with upstarts who see themselves as more zealously committed to Trump and his agenda.
Within days, a member of a powerful party committee resigned, a normally unanimous vote to certify convention results yielded dozens of defections and a Trump-backed legislator vying for control of the state House of Representatives was expelled from the Republican caucus.
The schism between those who continue to aggressively focus on claims of election fraud and those seeking to move the party on to other issues has come to light in other states, notably in Georgia, where it has dominated the GOP primary for governor.
In Michigan, party leaders increasingly fear it could darken otherwise bright Republican prospects in November, potentially...
A video shows the Green Party celebrating an election win in a foreign language. False. This video was posted before the election. It is a Bengali language campaign video posted by the Green Party ...