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… 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 still dwindling—a weakness that could cost Trump in the state.
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.
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“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.”
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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.”
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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.
A 58-year-old woman is accused of driving a vehicle at the bottom of a ski hill near skiers and snowboarders in White Lake Township, Michigan, the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office said Saturday.
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Prosecutors allege the Bingham Farms, Michigan, woman drove near guests of Alpine Valley Ski Area, including children, on Tuesday.
According to the prosecutor’s office, witnesses said they saw the woman smoking what appeared to be marijuana before the incident and wearing ski boots while driving. Officers attempting to perform sobriety tests reported that she “exhibited poor balance, slurred speech, and open hostility.”
Online court records show the woman is charged with operating while impaired for the third time. If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison, a maximum fine of $5,000 and “mandatory vehicle immobilization” for one to three years, the prosecutor’s office said.
“This defendant endangered children with her irresponsible actions,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said in a written statement. “There is no excuse to drive impaired, even once. If you’ve had too much to drink or are under the influence of marijuana or other drugs, call a friend, call an Uber, just don’t drive.”
The woman is scheduled to appear at a probable cause conference on March 12.
A long-lost silent film that’s believed to be the first depiction of a robot in motion pictures was rediscovered in Michigan. And it’s a great reminder for film history fans that you shouldn’t give up hope just because a film has been deemed lost.
The film, titled “Gugusse and the Automaton,” is just 45 seconds long and was created in 1897 by French film pioneer Georges Méliès. It shows a magician named Gugusse turning a large crank to control Pierrot Automate, a child-sized robot. The robot grows bigger and bigger until it’s an adult.
Once full size, the robot does a little dance before hitting Gugusse over the head with a stick. Gugusse brings the robot down from his pedestal and then shows him what’s what.
Gugusse hits the robot over the head with a gigantic mallet, each swing making the mechanical man a little smaller until he’s back to his child-like size. Another swing makes the robot a small doll and then it’s just one more mallet slap before the robot disappears completely.
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With that, the film is over.
It’s a short film with a goofy, slapstick premise. But it’s also an artifact that can be interpreted similarly to so much robot-focused media that would come later in the 20th century. The robot harms a human, the human needs to destroy the robot.
We see anti-robot stories pop up especially during difficult economic times, like the 1930s and 1970s, something I’ve written about before at length. And if you’re wondering whether there were hard economic times in France during the 1890s, there certainly were—in the form of a double dip recession, no less.
But putting aside the potential message of the film (and the risk of taking it too seriously as a sign of broader social frustrations), the story of how this film was rediscovered is fascinating.
Bill McFarland of Grand Rapids, Michigan, drove a box of films that belonged to his great-grandfather to the Library of Congress’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia so that experts could take a look at what he had.
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McFarland’s great-grandfather was a man named William Delisle Frisbee who had worked jobs as a school teacher and a potato farmer in Pennsylvania, according to a blog post from the Library of Congress. But he also worked nights as a “traveling showman,” according to the Library.
“He drove his horse and buggy from town to town to dazzle the locals with a projector and some of the world’s first moving pictures,” the Library explains. “He set up shop in a local schoolroom, church, lodge or civic auditorium and showed magic lantern slides and short films with music from a newfangled phonograph. It was shocking.”
Frisbee died in 1937 and two trunks of his possessions were passed on through generations until they made their way to McFarland, who was unable to screen the movies from himself because of their condition.
The Library posted a video to Instagram talking about their acquisition of the film and how remarkable it is that such an old film was found. It’s estimated that as much as 90% of films made before 1930 are lost to history.
Other films in the trunks included another Méliès film from 1900 titled “The Fat and Lean Wrestling Match,” fragments of a Thomas Edison movie called “The Burning Stable.” Library technicians scanned the films in 4K to preserve them for future generations.
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The word “robot” wasn’t coined until 1920 for the Czech play R.U.R. by Karel Capek. But visions of artificial men date back centuries. And it’s incredible to see a robot from the 1890s depicted on film for the first time. Even if it’s just 45 seconds long.
Don’t give up hope if you’re longing to watch some movie that’s believed to be completely lost. You never know what someone may have in a dusty old trunk in Michigan.
Kylan Boswell (4) scored 15 points for the Illini but Yaxel Lendeborg (23) scored 16 in Michigan’s win. Geoff Stellfox / Getty Images
Michigan has left no doubt about Big Ten superiority — the No. 3 Wolverines’ 84-70 romp Friday at No. 10 Illinois gives them an outright conference championship with two regular-season games remaining.
The win gives Michigan its first outright title since 2021, and it’s another top-shelf win that gives Michigan (27-2, 17-1 Big Ten) a boost in its pursuit of the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 seed. This matters for the Wolverines because they would be lined up for a potential Final Four matchup with the No. 4 seed rather than either of the two teams that are also in contention for No. 1 — Duke, which beat Michigan last week to gain the inside track, and Arizona.
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Friday’s lone meeting of the regular season between two purported national contenders left Michigan looking much the part, and Illinois looking a tier lower. This was domination, a comfortable second half for a Michigan team that led by as many as 21.
Michigan sophomore big man Morez Johnson Jr., who transferred from Illinois in the offseason, heard a lot of jeers from fans at State Farm Center and responded with 19 points and 11 rebounds. Big man Aday Mara also scored 19. Yaxel Lendeborg, the star of Michigan’s jumbo frontcourt, had 16 points and seven rebounds.
That interior helped the Wolverines to a 42-32 edge in points in the paint and 22 second-chance points. Keaton Wagler had 23 points to lead Illinois (22-7, 13-5), which projected as a No. 2 seed in Tuesday’s Bracket Watch but has lost two straight games and four of six. The Illini are trending in the wrong direction and potentially heading to the three-line.
The No. 1 seed also gets to choose its tournament path, and Michigan has requested Philadelphia as its first-weekend site. Otherwise, the Wolverines will likely be placed in Buffalo, which is closer to Ann Arbor.
