Former President Donald J. Trump crowned a resounding victory among Republican delegates on Saturday during a raucous convention in Michigan that exposed a deep rift in the state party that threatens to fester in one of the key battleground states.
Mr. Trump, the Republican front-runner, won at least 90 percent of the vote in all but one of the state’s 13 congressional districts against former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who was ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump.
A simple majority was needed in each district to win its share of delegates at the caucus-style event, giving Mr. Trump 39 points, along with the 12 he won in Tuesday’s Michigan primary. Ms. Haley emerged from this competition with four delegates.
Mr. Trump’s dominance earlier in the week left little doubt about the outcome of Saturday’s convention at the Amway Grand Plaza in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
But a protracted dispute over the rightful leader of the state party spilled into the process, with an estimated 200 Republican supporters from about 20 of Michigan’s 83 counties denied certification. Two other groups boycotted the event and held breakaway meetings, one more than 100 miles north in Houghton Lake, Michigan, and another more than 50 miles southeast in Battle Creek, Michigan.
Many of the rejected candidates were people associated with Kristina Karamo, whom party leaders voted to remove as state party leader in January. They replaced her with Pete Hoekstra, a former U.S. representative who was Mr. Trump’s ambassador to the Netherlands.
Not all of Ms. Karamo’s supporters were excluded Saturday: A Saginaw County group jeered and made thumbs-down gestures as Mr. Hoekstra spoke. He acknowledged the friction.
“It can be a little offensive,” Mr. Hoekstra told delegates during one of the gatherings, which took place in a ballroom filled with chandeliers and a portrait of President Gerald R. Ford, an old-guard Republican who grew up in Great Rapids.
Mr. Hoekstra, speaking to reporters, denied that the denial of accreditation was an act of retaliation and said those rejected had not properly registered for the convention.
Ernest Dugan, a Saginaw County delegate and supporter of Ms. Karamo, said he was disgusted by the actions of party leaders who criticized her over money problems in the party and government affairs.
“The whole thing smells too bad, you know,” Mr. Dugan said.
As a Black Republican, he said he was troubled by the message the party was sending with its ouster of Ms. Karamo, who is Black.
“A person of color wants to be in your group,” he said, adding, “Then you kick them to the curb?”
Until Friday, it had appeared that a rival convention that Ms. Karamo had planned months ago might compete with the convention organized by Mr. Hoekstra in Grand Rapids and recognized by the Republican National Committee. But after a series of legal defeats against her removal as party leader, Ms. Karamo scrapped her plans to hold the event in Detroit.
“We need to be united around Hoekstra,” said Jay A. Fedewa, chairman of the Genesee County Republican Party. “It’s disheartening that they don’t want to do that.”
Mr. Trump, whose victory in Michigan in the 2016 election propelled him to the presidency and who later lost the state to Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020, has recognized Mr. Hoekstra as chairman during the power struggle.
Debra Ell, a party leader from Saginaw County, tempered her loyalty to Ms. Karamo and the former president.
“Honestly, almost everyone — we love Trump, by the way — but everyone Trump supported in Michigan didn’t win,” said Ms. Ell, who wore a pin with Ms. Karamo’s picture on it. “So bless his heart. We love him but stay out of our politics.”
At the convention, where a delegate suffered a cardiac arrest, Mr. Trump surpassed his performance in Tuesday’s primaries. Mr. Hoekstra attributed the former president’s victory to the fact that the process was limited to Republicans. Primary elections in Michigan are open to all voters, regardless of party affiliation.
“These people are focused on winning in November,” he said. “Right? Don’t fight other Republicans.”
However, a woman with a sign reading “Hoekstra is a scammer” lingered nearby.
At the breakaway convention in Houghton Lake, about 300 Republicans who boycotted the Grand Rapids convention voted for delegate awards themselves, a move that Hoekstra and the RNC say doesn’t count. All votes went to Mr. Trump.
Daire Rendon, a former state representative who is facing felony charges related to a voting machine breach after the 2020 election that sought to overturn Trump’s loss in Michigan, led the event. She wore a blue Trump hat with a Q pin – for the QAnon conspiracy movement – on it.
“This will have no impact on national elections,” Ms. Rendon said. “But it impacts the party here in our state because we went back to the party of the old white guys when we had a new grassroots party led by Kristina Karamo, the younger, dynamic version of a rebirth of the Republican Party that is embraces a set of values that the Republican Party has always professed to stand for.”
The breakaway group then held a sort of polling station and urged Ms. Karamo’s supporters to run. They did the same for Mr. Hoekstra; no one stood up for him.
“We have a unanimous vote,” Ms. Rendon said.
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2024-03-02 22:46:46
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