Michigan

Michigan Republicans have a money problem

Published

1 year ago

August 3, 2024

Michigan Republicans have a money problem

With less than a 100 days to go before the presidential election, the Michigan GOP is entangled in financial turmoil, despite recent attempts to stabilize the state party’s shaky finances.

After a troublesome year under the helm of former Michigan GOP Chair Kristina Karamo, who clashed with some long-term, big-name donors to the party during her leadership, new chair Pete Hoekstra vowed to put the party back on the right track. Recent financial statements prove that, in the time between Karamo’s ouster in January and now, Hoekstra hasn’t yet achieved that goal financially.

The latest financial report from the Michigan GOP, released on July 25, shows that the party has only $384,000 on hand in its federal campaign account, while owing $184,000 in its state account.

Michigan Republican Party delegates convene at the Michigan GOP State Convention on March 2, 2024, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Despite attempts to bring the Michigan GOP’s shaky finances back on track, the party’s funds are…

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

Those are dire numbers for the party, especially when compared to the funds available to the Michigan Democratic Party, which recently reported having over six times the amount of money in their federal campaign account than the Michigan GOP. As of June 30, the Michigan Democratic Party reported having $2,273,068.51 cash on hand.

“The Michigan GOP Chair Pete Hoekstra vowed to get the party’s financial state in order when he took over for disgraced chair Kristina Karamo—clearly this hasn’t happened,” Andrew Feldman, founder and principal of the progressive strategic communications firm Feldman Strategies, told Newsweek.

“Regardless of what Donald Trump says about his support in Michigan, this financial picture plus new polls showing the race is tied are bad news for him, and puts the MAGA GOP in a tough place with just over three months until Election Day,” he added.

Michigan is a key swing state having gone for the Democratic nominee for president in seven of the last eight elections, including for Joe Biden in 2020. Trump won the state in 2016, one of the key victories in his ascent to the White House.

Newsweek reached out to the Michigan GOP for comment by email on Wednesday but has not received a response.

Political consultant and former Michigan GOP Executive Director Jeff Timmer, who describes himself as an “erstwhile” Republican, told Newsweek that looking at the current Michigan GOP’s campaign account, the party’s “really missing two entire zeros after that $300,000. They should have $30 million in their account. They don’t even have $3 million. They have one tenth of that.”

While saying that Karamo was “a quantum level bad fundraiser”, Timmer believes Hoekstra is “just an atomic level bad fundraiser.” Investors just aren’t willing to put money behind Trump in the battleground state, Timmer said.

“The historic donors to the party have said, this is not my circus, they’re not my monkeys. There have been reports that the DeVos family has resumed donations to the Michigan GOP, but they have committed like $10,000 each. That’s a fraction of what they were doing 25 years ago. They haven’t really invested; they’ve just written token checks.”

According to recent Federal Election Commission filings by the Michigan Republican Party, seven members of the DeVos family—Betsy, Dick, Cheri, Dan, Pamella, Doug and Maria—donated $10,000 each to the party in June, as reported by MLive.

Donations were resumed after a yearlong freeze while Karamo was at the helm of the party.

For Timmer, the Michigan GOP just doesn’t have enough money in their account to compete in one competitive legislative race, “let alone fight to regain control of the legislature in Lansing,” he told Newsweek. “They’re functionally bankrupt with $300,000—might as well be zero dollars. They matter the same in these next hundred days.”

Timmer expects the financial troubles of the Michigan GOP to cost Trump the state in November. “I fully expect that at the end of the day, Trump will lose Michigan and the Republicans will lose the Congressional and Senate races here,” he said.

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Michigan

Michigan football signs former No. 1-ranked running back

Published

10 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Michigan football signs former No. 1-ranked running back

Michigan football moved quickly to help fill its running back room on Thursday, adding the No. 1-ranked rusher in the 2024 recruiting class to the roster.

Taylor Tatum, who spent the last two seasons at Oklahoma, signed with the Wolverines for the 2026 season, The Ann Arbor News/MLive confirmed.

Tatum, listed at 5-foot-10 and 212 pounds, has three seasons of college eligibility remaining.

He appeared in 12 games for the Sooners, most of it during his true-freshman season in 2024. That first season, Tatum rushed for 278 yards and three touchdowns, highlighted by a five-carry, 69-yard game in Oklahoma’s season opener against Temple.

Tatum was hampered by injuries in 2025, appearing in just one game against South Carolina, where he rushed once for negative-1 yard.

A former four-star recruit, Tatum was considered the nation’s No. 1 running back in 2024 out of Longview High School in Texas, where he set the school record for career rushing touchdowns (53). He picked Oklahoma over Ohio State, Alabama, Oregon, USC, among others.

Tatum was also a member of the Oklahoma baseball team, though he didn’t appear in a game in 2025.

The signing comes just a day after Michigan’s leading rusher in 2025, Jordan Marshall, announced his return to the Wolverines. Since the transfer portal opened last Friday, reserve running backs Bryson Kuzdzal and Jasper Parker have entered. Parker has since signed to play at Arkansas next season.

Meanwhile, Michigan awaits a decision from its other star back, Justice Haynes, who’s left the door open to a return to college. A pair of freshmen backs, Savion Hiter and Jonathan Brown, also joined the team this week.

Tony Alford, Michigan’s running backs coach, was one of three assistants retained by new head coach Kyle Whittingham.

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Kyle Whittingham knows what Michigan football needs

Published

22 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Kyle Whittingham knows what Michigan football needs

Michigan football is primed to win now, new coach Kyle Whittingham said this week on “The Dan Patrick Show.”

The Wolverines have made far too many headlines off the field, which is why Whittingham told Patrick the organization needs to simply get back to focusing on the reason they’re all together as a team − football.

“The place doesn’t need a rebuild, it needs a reboot of trust and getting rid of the drama and just get back to playing Michigan football without all the distractions,” Whittingham said. “It didn’t come from the players. The players were not involved. It was not some player issue – it was just the peripheral.

“Guys here have a great attitude, I met with everyone of them last week at the bowl site. Quality young men, care about academics, excited to be at Michigan, but they’ve dealt with a lot over the last few years.”

Whittingham, 66, takes over as the 22nd head coach in program history after a pair of scandals rocked the previous two men who held his job.

Jim Harbaugh led the Wolverines from 2015-23 − and left on top by winning a national championship − but also was found to have a lack of institutional control in his program by NCAA investigators after two separate NCAA violations occurred under his watch: impermissible recruiting and illegal sign-stealing.

More recently, Sherrone Moore was fired in scandal after he was found to have had a relationship with a subordinate and was subsequently arrested after he allegedly went to her house and threatened his own life − he was jailed for two nights and charged with felony home invasion, misdemeanor stalking and misdemeanor breaking and entering.

Patrick asked if there was any selling point Whittingham needed to hear specifically from Michigan. Whittingham said when he stepped away from Utah in mid-December there were only a handful of program’s he would have even entertained. He called Michigan “a special place.”

“Needed to hear that Michigan was what I thought it was,” he said. “Hey’re committed to winning here, we do have some challenges with entrance requirements, there is a little bit of a hurdle there, but talk about athletes, resources, tradition − it’s all here at Michigan.”

Whittingham also quipped about the irony of previously being a team that wore red (Utah) whose primary rival wore blue (BYU) to flipping that. It’s also not lost on him that his mentor, Urban Meyer, went 7-0 against Michigan in his tenure in Columbus − Whittingham joked at his opening press conference that Meyer’s name alone might be considered a “four-letter word” in Ann Arbor.

“Blue was our rival at Utah for years,” he said. “Now I’ve got to get used to saying, ‘Go Blue.’”

Whittingham is in the throes of one of the busiest times on the college football calendar. The transfer portal opened for a 15-day window Jan. 2-16, setting off a scramble to both retain players, scout the database and find appropriate fits for the team.

Whittingham has only known his roster and coaches for approximately 10 days – he said while down in Florida he was going to “lock himself” in a room at Schembechler Hall in Ann Arbor to watch film on the players on his roster. He has been able to keep Bryce Underwood, Andrew Marsh, Andrew Babalola, Blake Frazier, Evan Link, Jake Guarnera and Zeke Berry − the last two of whom had put their names in the transfer portal before indicating their return to U-M for 2026.

With money flowing, back-channeling frequent and poaching at an all-time high, Whittingham doesn’t see college football’s current model as something that will last as currently constructed for more than a handful of years.

“It is not sustainable, there’s no question about that,” Whittingham said. “Something’s gotta give. Within a 2- to 4-, 5-year window, you’re going to see a major overhaul of Division I football. I think it’s going to become more of a minor league NFL model. I think you’re gonna see a salary cap, collective bargaining, players as employees.

“I think all that’s coming because we cannot maintain this pace.”

Tony Garcia is the Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.

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Michigan Lottery contributions over $1B to K-12 schools for 7th year in a row, state says

Published

1 day ago

January 7, 2026

Press Room

Michigan Lottery contributions over B to K-12 schools for 7th year in a row, state says

LANSING, MI – The Michigan Lottery’s annual contribution to K-12 education reached more than $1 billion for the seventh time in a row in 2025, according to the state.

The amount at $1.16 billion makes up roughly 5-6% of the state’s School Aid Fund, which has exceeded $20 billion in recent years.

It peaked in 2021 at $1.4 billion, according to the state budget office, marking a 78.4% increase in six years at the time. The reported portion for 2025 marks a slight decrease when compared to the previous five years.

In a release on Wednesday, Jan. 7, the state reported the total Lottery contribution had reached more than $30 billion since it began in 1972 and $8.7 billion within a seven-year span.

“In (2025), Lottery retailers earned more than $300 million in commissions for the sixth straight year,” Acting Lottery Commissioner Joe Froehlich said in a statement. “The support the Lottery provides to public education and to businesses throughout the state is critical and far-reaching.”

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office utilized Wednesday’s announcement to recap the current state investment in K-12 schools based on the budget deal lawmakers green-lit in October three months after the current fiscal year was already underway.

That includes a 4.6% hike to $10,050 per student, $201.6 million to maintain a free universal meals program that Whitmer said saves “parents almost $1,000 a year per kid,” and a series of investments geared toward boosting literacy skills.

“This year’s lottery contributions will help build on that progress and make a difference for students, educators and schools across Michigan,” the governor said in a statement.

Other budget highlights included hundreds of millions in grants to reduce class sizes and school infrastructure, as well as for career-technical education and English-language learners.

Additionally, there was another $258.7 million boost to $1.3 billion for at-risk student supports and $321 million to support mental health and school safety initiatives ― the latter including a waiver requirement that spurred litigation from schools against the state in late 2025.

According to the Michigan Lottery, participating retailers earned more than $330 million in commissions for the 2025 fiscal year. Since 2019, when the Lottery’s streak of billion-dollar contributions to the School Aid Fund began, the state reported more than $2.3 billion in commissions.

Lottery products are sold at more than 10,000 locations across the state, and over 700 retailers sold $1 million or more last year in Lottery games.

Michigan residents took home more than $2.8 billion in prizes in 2025 and over $58 billion since the Lottery began.

According to the state, roughly 25 cents went to the School Aid Fund from every dollar spent on a Michigan Lottery Ticket, while 63 cents went to players as prizes, 9 cents to vendor commissions and 3 cents to the Lottery’s operations.

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