Michigan GOP moves forward with 2020 election-denying secretary of state and AG
Michigan Republicans picked two candidates — both deny the 2020 election results and have been endorsed by former President Donald Trump — to serve as the state's next top elections officer and top law enforcement official.
Kristina Karamo, a community college professor who rose to prominence after claiming she saw election fraud in Detroit in the last presidential race, won the three-person contest for secretary of state with about 67% of the vote at Saturday's GOP endorsement convention in Grand Rapids. On the November ballot, her opponent will be incumbent Democrat Jocelyn Benson.
Matt DePerno, an attorney who has pushed Trump's false claims of election fraud, won the party's endorsement for attorney general. In a runoff race, DePerno took 54% of the vote to defeat former state House Speaker Tom Leonard, who was seen as the more establishment Republican candidate. DePerno is now running against incumbent Democrat Dana Nessel.
Michigan does not hold primary elections for a number of down-ballot races, including the secretary of state — who oversees elections — and attorney general. Instead, Republicans and Democrats endorse and nominate candidates for November's general election at party conventions.
At this weekend's GOP convention, the party voted resoundingly to support Trump's false claims about the 2020 election. About 2,000 delegates from across the state participated in the vote.
The convention was seen by many as the first major test of Trump's influence over the 2022 elections. Trump's former campaign attorney Rudy Giuliani attended the convention, as well as MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, who has become a leader in the election denial movement.
The former president came to Michigan earlier this month to stump with both Karamo and DePerno.
"This is not just about 2022," Trump said during his visit to the state in early April. "This is about making sure Michigan is not rigged and stolen again in 2024."
Karamo is the first of the many election-denying candidates running in secretary of state races across the U.S. to move toward appearing on a state ballot in November. She has also said she doesn't believe evolution should be taught in schools.
Incumbent Democrat Benson faced a torrent of threats and harassment following the 2020 election that echoed Trump's lies about voting in Michigan. Ahead of Saturday's vote, Benson said that she worried about the state of democracy, should the state elect a secretary of state candidate like Karamo, who thinks the 2020 election was stolen.
"It's like putting arsonists in charge of a fire department. It's like putting a bank robber in charge of a bank and giving them the keys to the vault," Benson said. "This is a choice between whether or not we'll have a democracy moving forward."
Looking ahead to the general election, some Michigan political insiders question whether Karamo will be able to widen her support outside of Trump's base, considering the range of controversial views she has already voiced.
She appeared at a QAnon-adjacent rally last year, and she has said she believes the conspiracy theory that left-wing activists were behind the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
"Every ad from April 24 through November is going to say 'QAnon Karamo is too crazy for us,' " said state Rep. Beau LaFave, a Republican who ran for secretary of state against Karamo, before Saturday's vote.
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Transcript
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This weekend, Republicans in Michigan voted to endorse Kristina Karamo, a candidate who claims the 2020 election was stolen, as their nominee for the statewide position that controls voting in the critical swing state. NPR's Miles Parks was there in Grand Rapids for the vote, and he has this report.
MILES PARKS, BYLINE: As Michigan GOP chair Meshawn Maddock began reading the results of this weekend's vote, the crowd here at DeVos Place Convention Center in Grand Rapids erupted.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MESHAWN MADDOCK: I want to congratulate our endorsed candidate for secretary of state, Kristina Karamo.
PARKS: Kristina Karamo is a community college professor who's made her name in politics by denying the 2020 election results. This weekend, she moved one step closer to overseeing Michigan's elections when she won the Michigan Republican Party's endorsement to become their nominee for secretary of state. Instead of primaries, in Michigan, political parties pick their nominees for a number of down-ballot races at party conventions like this one.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Perfect.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Thank you.
PARKS: That's the sound of Republican delegates inserting their ballots into voting machines they don't trust, voting in an election that was focused on a perceived lack of integrity in elections.
VALERIE ALLEMON-RAIMI: Well, election fraud is on the top of my list because we all know what happened. We all do. And if you don't think it happened, you're living under a rock.
PARKS: That's Valerie Allemon-Raimi. She's a delegate from Macomb County, Mich., who just voted for Karamo, and she's wearing what looks like a giant Donald Trump flag that's been turned into a dress.
ALLEMON-RAIMI: I've had this for almost a year now, but I bought two of them. I actually bought three and gave one to my friend.
PARKS: She says she's gotten a few eye rolls from more establishment Republicans here at this convention, but it was clear from the voting results this weekend that the anti-Trumpers here were outnumbered. Trump endorsed Karamo and an election-denying candidate for attorney general, and they both beat out more mainstream Republican candidates. But some Republicans worry the party is picking ideologue candidates at the expense of electability. Karamo, for instance, has also said evolution shouldn't be taught in schools, and she spoke at a QAnon conference last year. Here she is at a recent rally with Trump.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KRISTINA KARAMO: President Trump, thank you for what you did for our country. You pulled the scale off of so many people eyes of how there's a cabal of people in leaderships bent on destroying our country.
(APPLAUSE)
KARAMO: Thank you.
PARKS: While Karamo clearly energizes the Trump base, fellow Republican, Michigan state Representative Beau LaFave, says...
BEAU LAFAVE: There's no way that Kristina Karamo will win in November.
PARKS: LaFave also ran for secretary of state, and his main argument was that Karamo has too much baggage to win a general election against incumbent Democrat Jocelyn Benson, who already has a large fundraising lead.
LAFAVE: It's going to be every single ad the Democrats play. Starting on Monday morning, it's going to be QAnon Karamo. And I don't think that's going to work.
PARKS: Benson, the Democratic incumbent, says she hopes when people look at her race against Karamo, they understand the risk of putting someone in charge of voting who denies the results of a fair election.
JOCELYN BENSON: It's like putting arsonists in charge of a fire department. This is a choice between whether or not we'll have a democracy moving forward.
PARKS: An NPR/Marist College poll from November found that more than 60% of Republican voters don't trust that elections in the U.S. are fair, making election denialism almost a prerequisite for statewide Republican candidates. How that strategy plays, however, in an election where Trump isn't even on the ballot remains one of the biggest open questions of this year's midterms. Miles Parks, NPR News, Grand Rapids, Mich.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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