Two candidates backed by Donald Trump won support from Republicans in Michigan for attorney general and secretary of state on Saturday, clearing their way to stand against incumbent Democrats in the fall.
The meeting of thousands of delegates was a test of Trump’s influence in the party.
His allies – Attorney General Matthew Deperno, a lawyer and Secretary of State candidate Cristina Caramo, a public college instructor – emerged three-time winners of the 10-hour convention convention in downtown Grand Rapids.
Newcomers to politics support Trump’s false claims about his loss in 2020 in the swing state. They will be formally nominated for a second convention in August and will challenge Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in November.
Karamo won easily with two-thirds of the vote. DePerno was simply ashamed of the required majority in the initial vote. But he won a run-off over former lawmaker Tom Leonard, who was paused and later restarted after the order of voting in the race did not match what was shown on the side screens.
Trump said his preferred candidates would not allow Michigan to be “stolen” in the next presidential election. He lost the state by 154,000 votes to Joe Biden. However, Trump’s list drew criticism from the Republican wing, which considered the candidates ineligible in the fall, and was disappointed that party leaders openly supported them instead of being neutral.
Depernoy’s main rival for the nomination was Leonard, the party’s attorney general for 2018, whom Trump later nominated as a U.S. prosecutor in western Michigan. State envoy Ryan Berman, who finished third, called on his supporters to support Leonard in the runoff.
Bernadette Smith, one of the party’s vice presidents, said Depernoy “is the only candidate who will fight for the integrity of the election.” As DePerno supporters marched to the front of the hall to show their support, a video was released in which Trump advertised DePerno and called Leonard “Rhino” – or a Republican by name.
Depert was unsuccessful in a lawsuit after a human error caused the rural district of Antrim to misrepresent Biden’s local victory over Trump. It was quickly corrected, but was used to spread misinformation about voting equipment.
He may face consequences over the Antrim case. Deperno recently confirmed that the State Prosecutor’s Complaints Commission is investigating him.
Nessel launched a separate investigation last year after a Republican-led legislature said people were making baseless claims about the results in Antrim to raise money or publicity for their own ends. The commission’s report does not specify who should be investigated, but the people mentioned in it include DePerno.
In the race for Secretary of State, Caramo defeated State Representative Bo Lafav and Chesterfield Cindy Berry.
“We will make sure that our election results are something everyone can be sure of,” Caramo said.
As a sign of the prevalence of rigged elections, the party used machines to count votes, but also counted ballots by hand in a compromise with activists.
Nominees for competitions throughout the state of Michigan are elected to congresses, except for the primary election for governor and the US Senate. The climate of the by-elections is expected to favor Republicans, but incumbent attorneys general and secretaries of state rarely lose.
The State Democratic Party said Republicans should be “ashamed” of their approved candidates. Party chairman Lavora Barnes called Caramo a “fear-spreading, inexperienced extremist” and said Deperno was a “lackey” of Trump who wanted to protect the former president, but not all Michigan residents.
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