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.

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.