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    Far-Right Candidate in Missouri Draws Backlash for Homophobic Video

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    It was a fringe Republican campaign ad that could be ripe for parody on late-night television, ideal material for a skit on “Saturday Night Live” or the target of a monologue from a bewildered Jon Stewart. Except it was real, and it is hard to imagine how it could be further satirized.“In America, you can be anything you want,” Valentina Gomez, a 25-year-old Latino immigrant and real estate investor running in the G.O.P. primary for secretary of state in Missouri, says in the video as she jogs through a historic district of St. Louis to the uplifting beats of “The Show Goes On” by Lupe Fiasco.“So don’t be weak and gay. Stay hard,” she continues, emphasizing her statement with an expletive. The neighborhood where the video was filmed, Soulard, has a significant L.G.B.T. community.The campaign ad, which Ms. Gomez shared on her social media accounts, then transitions from the video of Ms. Gomez — wearing running shorts and a vest resembling body armor — to a still photo of the candidate in front of a truck and wearing a National Rifle Association hat, with an American flag at her side and a gun in each hand.The campaign ad, first posted on Sunday, has drawn condemnation and scrutiny online. Mr. Fiasco, who has condemned homophobia in the hip-hop scene, distanced himself from the video that featured one of his hit singles, saying in a statement that he was “currently taking action.” Jason Kander, a former Democratic secretary of state in Missouri and a former Army intelligence officer, mocked Ms. Gomez in a social media post on Tuesday.“So refreshing to see a female GOP candidate who never served in the military doing the whole veteran cosplay, stolen valor, bigotry as a substitute for strength routine as well as any man,” wrote Mr. Kander, who deployed to Afghanistan in 2006 and has since struggled with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Michigan’s G.O.P. Nominating Process Appears Headed For Chaos

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      As early in-person voting began on Saturday in Michigan, a fight for control of the G.O.P. in the crucial battleground state plunged Republicans there deeper into a political maelstrom, with rival factions potentially barreling toward hosting dueling nominating conventions.As if things weren’t already confusing.In a little over a week, the state will host a traditional primary on one day, and then a caucus-style convention a few days later. Now, it seems, there could actually be two conventions, in different parts of the state, each claiming legitimacy.Former President Donald J. Trump is headed to Michigan on Saturday night, with a campaign rally in Waterford Township, about 30 miles northwest of Detroit. While he has made it clear which faction he is supporting, and so has the national party, that has done little to dissuade the Trump-styled election denier attempting to hold on to power.The feud, already being waged in state court, appears to be only gaining intensity.Pete Hoekstra, whom the Republican National Committee recognized on Wednesday as the state party’s rightful chairman after his election last month, said he was moving forward with plans to hold a statewide nominating convention on March 2 in Western Michigan.But Kristina Karamo, defying the R.N.C.’s determination that she had properly been removed as party chairwoman earlier in January and Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Mr. Hoekstra, has also indicated that she will continue hosting a convention on the same day, for the same purpose, but in Detroit.At stake at the convention will be 39 of Michigan’s 55 Republican presidential delegates. The other 16 will be decided during the state’s Feb. 27 primary, which includes at least nine days of early voting. The hybrid process, new this year, was adopted by Republicans in order to comply with R.N.C. rules after Michigan’s Democratic governor moved up the primary date.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge Denies Effort to Remove Trump From the Ballot in Washington State

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      A judge in Washington State said on Thursday that former President Donald J. Trump’s name could remain on the state’s primary ballot. The ruling was the latest in a series of battles nationwide over whether Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat make him ineligible to hold the presidency again.A group of voters had filed a legal challenge asking state officials in Washington to leave Mr. Trump off the Republican primary ballot. But Judge Mary Sue Wilson said that Washington’s secretary of state had acted “consistent with his duties” by including Mr. Trump.Formal challenges to Mr. Trump’s candidacy have been filed in at least 35 states, according to a New York Times review of court records and other documents. So far, he has been disqualified in only two states: Colorado, by an appeals court ruling, and Maine, by the secretary of state.The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Mr. Trump’s appeal of the Colorado decision on Feb. 8. The case could determine his eligibility for the ballot nationally.Tracking Efforts to Remove Trump From the 2024 BallotSee which states have challenges seeking to bar Donald J. Trump from the presidential primary ballot.As in other states, the voters in Washington argued that Mr. Trump’s actions related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol made him ineligible for office under the 14th Amendment. Steve Hobbs, the secretary of state and Washington’s top election official, has said he does not believe that he has the power to remove Mr. Trump from the primary ballot on his own.But Mr. Hobbs has said that court rulings could change his decision. A lawyer representing his office asked Judge Wilson on Thursday for a prompt ruling on the challenge to Mr. Trump’s eligibility, because ballots would be going out later this month to voters in the military and overseas.A lawyer representing the state Republican Party argued that the case brought by voters was flawed for technical reasons, and also because federal courts had not convicted Mr. Trump of any criminal conduct that would disqualify him.The issue could return after the primary, depending on Mr. Trump’s legal fortunes. Washington State law allows a voter to seek the removal of a candidate from the general election ballot if that candidate has been convicted of a felony, and Mr. Trump faces 91 felony charges as part of various criminal cases against him.In her ruling, Judge Wilson declined, for now, to rule on Mr. Trump’s eligibility for the general election in November.Lazaro Gamio More

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      Trump’s Team Prepares to File Challenges on Ballot Decisions Soon

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      The cases in Colorado, Maine and other states are requiring former President Donald J. Trump to devote resources already spread thin across four criminal indictments.Former President Donald J. Trump’s advisers are preparing as soon as Tuesday to file challenges to decisions in Colorado and Maine to disqualify Mr. Trump from the Republican primary ballot because of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to a person familiar with the matter.In Maine, the challenge to the secretary of state’s decision to block Mr. Trump from the ballot will be filed in a state court. But the Colorado decision, which was made by that state’s highest court, will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is likely to face fresh pressure to weigh in on the issue.On Thursday, Maine became the second state to keep Mr. Trump off the primary ballot over challenges stemming from Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which states that any officer of the United States who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution cannot “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”“Every state is different,” Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, told a local CBS affiliate on Friday morning. “I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. I fulfilled my duty.”Mr. Trump has privately told some people that he believes the Supreme Court will overwhelmingly rule against the Colorado and Maine decisions, according to a person familiar with what he has said. But he has also been critical of the Supreme Court, to which he appointed three conservative justices, creating a supermajority. The court has generally shown little appetite for Mr. Trump’s election-related cases.Mr. Trump has expressed concern that the conservative justices will worry about being perceived as “political” and may rule against him, according to a person with direct knowledge of his private comments.Unlike with the Colorado decision, which caught many on Mr. Trump’s team by surprise, the former president’s advisers had anticipated the Maine outcome for several days. They prepared a statement in advance of the decision and had the bulk of their appeal filing written after the consolidated hearing that Ms. Bellows held on Dec. 15, according to a person close to Mr. Trump.The people who have filed ballot challenges have generally argued that Mr. Trump incited an insurrection when he encouraged supporters to whom he insisted the election was stolen to march on the Capitol while the 2020 electoral vote was being certified. The former president has been indicted on charges related to the eventual attack on the Capitol, but he has not been criminally charged with “insurrection,” a point his allies have repeatedly made.On his social media site, Truth Social, Mr. Trump has highlighted commentary from Democrats who have suggested discomfort with the ballot decisions.In Maine, the move was made unilaterally by Ms. Bellows after challenges were filed. Trump allies have repeatedly highlighted Ms. Bellows’s Democratic Party affiliation and the fact that she is not an elected official, but an appointed one.The twin decisions have created an uncertain terrain in the Republican nominating contest with elections in the early states set to begin on Jan. 15, with Iowa’s caucuses. Additional ballot challenges may be filed in other states, although so far several have fizzled.This week, a Wisconsin complaint trying to remove Mr. Trump from the ballot there was dismissed, and the secretary of state in California said Mr. Trump would remain on the ballot in that state. According to the website Lawfare, 14 states have active lawsuits seeking to remove Mr. Trump, with more expected to be filed. A decision is expected soon in a case in Oregon.The Colorado and Maine decisions require an additional focus of resources and attention for a Trump team that is already spread thin across four criminal indictments in four different states.But two people close to Mr. Trump, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, described that reality as already baked in for a Trump team that has been focused on legal issues for most of the last two years. They argued that, in the short term, the former president would see political benefits along the lines of what he saw when he was indicted: a rallying effect among Republicans.Mr. Trump and his team have tried to collapse these cases into a single narrative that Democrats are engaged in a “witch hunt” against him, and they have used the election suits to suggest that Democrats are interfering in an election — an attempt to turn the tables given that Mr. Trump’s monthslong effort to undermine the 2020 election is at the heart of legal and political arguments against him.“Democrats in blue states are recklessly and un-Constitutionally suspending the civil rights of the American voters by attempting to summarily remove President Trump’s name from ballots,” Mr. Trump’s spokesman, Steven Cheung, said in a statement to The New York Times.The ballot rulings have become another focus for the mainstream and conservative news media, chewing up time and attention that Mr. Trump’s primary rivals, who trail him by wide margins in polls, need in hopes of catching up.Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey who is among those challenging Mr. Trump for the nomination, told CNN that the decision “makes him a martyr,” adding, “He’s very good at playing ‘Poor me, poor me.’ He’s always complaining.”Because of a number of factors, it is unclear how much of a practical effect the efforts to remove Mr. Trump from primary ballots will have for the Republican nominating contest. In the case of Colorado, where the state’s top court reversed a lower-court ruling and declared Mr. Trump ineligible for the primary, he remains on the ballot while he asks the Supreme Court to intervene. More

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      Maine Bars Trump From 2024 Primary Ballot, Joining Colorado

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      In a written decision, Maine’s secretary of state said that Donald J. Trump did not qualify for the ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.Maine’s top election official on Thursday barred Donald J. Trump from the state’s primary election ballot, the second state to block the former president’s bid for re-election based on claims that his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election rendered him ineligible.In a written decision, the official, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, said that Mr. Trump did not qualify for the ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, agreeing with a handful of citizens who claimed that he had incited an insurrection and was thus barred from seeking the presidency again under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.“I am mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.,” Ms. Bellows, a Democrat, wrote.Last week, Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled in a 4 to 3 decision that the former president should not be allowed to appear on that state’s Republican primary ballot.The decision in Maine underscores the ongoing tensions in the United States over democracy, ballot access and the rule of law. It also adds urgency to calls for the U.S. Supreme Court to insert itself into the politically explosive dispute over his eligibility.Just weeks before the first votes in the 2024 election are set to be cast, lawyers on both sides are asking the nation’s top court to provide guidance on an obscure constitutional amendment enacted after the Civil War, which is at the heart of the effort to block Mr. Trump from making a third White House run.Courts in two other states, Minnesota and Michigan, have ruled that election officials cannot prevent the Republican Party from including Mr. Trump on their primary ballots.Michigan’s Supreme Court concluded on Wednesday that an appeals court had properly decided that political parties should be able to determine which candidates are eligible to run for president.Another court decision is expected in Oregon, where the same group that filed the Michigan lawsuit is also seeking to have the courts remove Mr. Trump from the ballot there, though Oregon’s secretary of state declined to remove him in response to an earlier challenge.And in California, the state’s top election official was expected to announce whether Mr. Trump would remain among the candidates certified for the March 5 primary.Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat, faced a Thursday deadline to certify the list of official candidates so that local election officials could begin preparing ballots for the upcoming election. She has indicated in recent days that she is inclined to keep Mr. Trump on the ballot, despite a request from the lieutenant governor to explore ways to remove him.The legal cases are based on a Reconstruction Era constitutional amendment that was intended to bar Confederate officials from serving in the U.S. government. The provision, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, disqualifies people who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.Over the years, the courts and Congress have done little to clarify how that criterion can be met. As the legal challenges mount, election officials and judges across the country find themselves in largely uncharted waters as they wait for the Supreme Court to provide guidance.The case would be the most politically momentous matter before the Supreme Court since it settled the disputed 2000 election in favor of President George W. Bush. Since then, the court has become far more conservative, in large part as a result of the three justices whom Mr. Trump appointed as president.Mr. Trump and his lawyers have called the efforts to bar him from ballots an underhanded tactic by Democrats who fear facing him at the polls.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, assailed Maine’s secretary of state as “a virulent leftist and hyperpartisan Biden-supporting Democrat.” In a statement, he added: “Make no mistake, these partisan election interference efforts are a hostile assault on American democracy.”Groups leading the disqualification efforts contend that the former president’s attempts to subvert the will of voters in 2020 warrant extraordinary measures to protect American democracy.Ms. Bellows, the official in Maine charged with considering the petition in that state, is the state’s first female secretary of state and a former state senator. She is also the former executive director of the nonprofit Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine and of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine.In her 34-page decision, Ms. Bellows wrote that Mr. Trump’s petition to appear on the Maine ballot was invalid because he falsely declared on his candidate consent form that he was qualified to hold the office of president. She found that he was not, she wrote, because “the record establishes that Mr. Trump, over the course of several months and culminating on Jan. 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them” to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.She also concluded that Mr. Trump “was aware of the likelihood for violence and at least initially supported its use given he both encouraged it with incendiary rhetoric and took no timely action to stop it.”Legal experts say the scope of a Supreme Court decision on the issue would determine if these challenges will be quickly handled or play out for months.A ruling that Mr. Trump’s conduct cannot be construed as a violation of the 14th Amendment would effectively shut down challenges pending in several states. A narrower ruling on the Colorado case could allow Mr. Trump to remain on the state’s primary ballot, while giving lawyers challenging his eligibility a chance to argue that he should be kept off the general election ballot.The petitioners in Maine included Ethan Strimling, a former mayor of Portland and Democratic state legislator who filed a challenge along with two other former Maine lawmakers.“Secretary Bellows showed great courage in her ruling, and we look forward to helping her defend her judicious and correct decision in court,” they said in a statement on Thursday. “No elected official is above the law or our constitution, and today’s ruling reaffirms this most important of American principles.”Mr. Trump can appeal Ms. Bellows’s decision to Maine’s Superior Court within five days. Her order will not go into effect until the court rules on an appeal, which the Trump campaign says it intends to file soon. The Republican primaries in Maine and Colorado are both scheduled for March 5, known as Super Tuesday because so many states hold primaries that day.The challenges to Mr. Trump’s ballot access have been brought in more than 30 states in recent weeks, largely through the courts. But because of a quirk in Maine’s Constitution, registered voters there must first file a petition with the secretary of state.Ms. Bellows heard arguments on three such petitions on Dec. 15.After the Colorado decision, lawyers for Mr. Trump argued in new Maine filings that the Colorado ruling should be irrelevant there because the two states had different laws and standards, and because Mr. Trump did not have a fair opportunity to litigate the facts in Colorado. They also maintained that the secretary of state lacked the authority to exclude him from the ballot.“The constitution reserves exclusively to the Electoral College and Congress the power to determine whether a person may serve as president,” they argued in the filing late last week.Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an election law expert, said the Maine decision illustrated the power of the Colorado court ruling to ease the way for similar decisions.“It takes a lot of courage to disqualify a major candidate, but once the Colorado court did it, and thrust the issue into public light, it became easier for others,” he said.Given the “incredible complexity” of the legal questions involved, said Mr. Hasen, the U.S. Supreme Court is best equipped to resolve the issues. If the court opts not to disqualify Mr. Trump, its decision would not be binding for Congress, but it would make it “politically very difficult for Congress to say something different,” he said.In California, where the secretary of state is certifying an approved list of candidates, Democrats have overwhelming control of government, so the state might seem like a likely venue for a ballot challenge similar to the one that was successful in Colorado.But legal experts said that California, unlike many other states, does not explicitly give its secretary of state the authority to disqualify presidential candidates.Nonetheless, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a Democrat, asked Ms. Weber last week to “explore every legal option” to remove Mr. Trump from the ballot using the same constitutional justification cited by the Colorado Supreme Court.In response, Ms. Weber suggested last week that she planned to leave the question up to state and federal courts, which have already dismissed at least two lawsuits in the state challenging Mr. Trump’s qualifications. Ms. Weber wrote that she was obligated to address ballot eligibility questions “within legal parameters” and “in a way that transcends political divisions.”Gov. Gavin Newsom of California indicated last week that he did not believe officials in his state should remove Mr. Trump from the ballot. “There is no doubt that Donald Trump is a threat to our liberties and even to our democracy, but in California we defeat candidates we don’t like at the polls,” he said in a statement. “Everything else is a political distraction.”Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs More

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      Michigan Supreme Court Decides Trump Can Stay on Ballot

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      After Colorado’s top court ruled that the former president was disqualified for engaging in insurrection, justices in Michigan considered a similar challenge.The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday paved the way for Donald J. Trump to appear on the state’s primary ballot, a victory for the former president in a battleground state. The state’s top court upheld an appeals court decision that found that the former president could appear on the ballot despite questions about his eligibility to hold elected office because of his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.The Michigan decision followed a bombshell ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court, which on Dec. 19 determined in a 4-3 opinion that Mr. Trump should be removed from the state’s 2024 Republican primary ballot for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.Mr. Trump applauded the Michigan ruling in a statement posted on his social media platform, Truth Social. “We have to prevent the 2024 Election from being Rigged and Stolen like they stole 2020,” the statement said. Ron Fein, the legal director of Free Speech For People, a group seeking to have Mr. Trump disqualified from running in the 2024 election, said the Michigan Supreme Court ruled narrowly, sidestepping the core questions at the heart of the case. The decision, he said, leaves the door open to challenge whether Mr. Trump can appear on the general election ballot in Michigan. “The Michigan Supreme Court did not rule out that the question of Donald Trump’s disqualification for engaging in insurrection against the U.S. Constitution may be resolved at a later stage,” Mr. Fein said in a statement. Michigan’s primary will be held Feb. 27.The question of Mr. Trump’s eligibility is widely expected to be answered by the U.S. Supreme Court. Some form of challenge to Mr. Trump’s eligibility has been lodged in more than 30 states, but many of those have already been dismissed.The challengers’ arguments are based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies anyone from holding federal office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution after having taken an oath to support it.A lower-court judge previously decided the ballot eligibility case in Mr. Trump’s favor. Judge James Robert Redford of the Court of Claims in Michigan ruled in November that disqualifying a candidate through the 14th Amendment was a political issue, not one for the courts. A lower court in Colorado had also ruled in Mr. Trump’s favor before the Supreme Court there took up the case.Judge Redford also ruled that Michigan’s top elections official does not have the authority alone to exclude Mr. Trump from the ballot. Free Speech for People, a liberal-leaning group that filed the lawsuit, appealed the ruling, asking the state Supreme Court to hear the case on an accelerated timetable.Jocelyn Benson, the Michigan secretary of state and a Democrat, echoed the request for a quick decision, citing approaching deadlines for printing paper primary ballots. She wrote that a ruling was needed by Dec. 29 “in order to ensure an orderly election process.”Jan. 13 is the deadline for primary ballots to be sent to military and overseas voters; absentee voter ballots must be printed by Jan. 18. The state’s presidential primary is set for Feb. 27.Mitch Smith More

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      Louisiana General Election 2023: Live Results

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      Source: Election results are from The Associated Press.Produced by Michael Andre, Cam Baker, Neil Berg, Matthew Bloch, Irineo Cabreros, Andrew Chavez, Nate Cohn, Lindsey Rogers Cook, Alastair Coote, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Tiff Fehr, Andrew Fischer, Martín González Gómez, Will Houp, Jasmine C. Lee, Ilana Marcus, Jaymin Patel, Charlie Smart and Isaac White. Editing by Wilson Andrews, William P. Davis, Amy Hughes, Ben Koski and Allison McCartney. More

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      How Trump’s Election Lies Left the Michigan G.O.P. Broken and Battered

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      Infighting between Trump acolytes and traditionalists has driven away donors and voters. Can the Michigan Republican Party rebuild in time for the presidential election?The Michigan Republican Party is starving for cash. A group of prominent activists — including a former statewide candidate — was hit this month with felony charges connected to a bizarre plot to hijack election machines. And in the face of these troubles, suspicion and infighting have been running high. A recent state committee meeting led to a fistfight, a spinal injury and a pair of shattered dentures.This turmoil is one measure of the way Donald J. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election have rippled through his party. While Mr. Trump has just begun to wrestle with the consequences of his fictions — including two indictments related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 results — the vast machine of activists, donors and volunteers that power his party has been reckoning with the fallout for years.As the party looks toward the presidential election next year, the strains are glaring.Mr. Trump’s election lies spread like wildfire in Michigan, breaking the state party into ardent believers and pragmatists wanting to move on. Bitter disputes, power struggles and contentious primaries followed, leaving the Michigan Republican Party a husk of itself.The battleground has steadily grown safer for Democrats. No Republican has won a statewide election there since Mr. Trump won the state in 2016. (Republicans have won nonpartisan seats on the State Supreme Court.) G.O.P. officials in the state are growing concerned that they do not have a top-tier candidate to run for the open Senate seat.“It’s not going real well, and all you have to do is look at the facts,” said Representative Lisa McClain, a Republican from Eastern Michigan. “The ability to raise money, we’ve got a lot of donors sitting on the sideline. That’s not an opinion. That’s a fact. It’s just a plain fact. We have to fix that.”She added: “Everyone is in the blame game. We’ve got to stop.”Representative Lisa McClain at a Trump rally in Michigan in 2022. Ms. McClain says the “everyone is in the blame game” as the Michigan G.O.P. struggles with infighting and sluggish fund-raising. Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesMichigan Republicans were long a force in national politics. The state was home to Gerald Ford and George Romney and to many of the “Reagan Democrats” who helped transform the party four decades ago. Ronna McDaniel, the current chair of the Republican National Committee, was the chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party until 2017. Betsy DeVos, the former secretary of education under Mr. Trump who resigned after Jan. 6, is a power broker in the state, managing vast wealth and a political network with influence far beyond state lines.The slow unraveling of the state party began well before the 2020 election. Throughout the Obama administration, the right wing of the party grew more vocal and active. After Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016, many party posts that were once controlled largely by megadonor families and the Republican establishment began to be filled by Trump acolytes.By 2021, the new activists wanted to support only candidates who believed the 2020 election, which Mr. Trump lost in Michigan by more than 154,000 votes, was fraudulent and were committed to trying to do something about it.Those leaders soon emerged. Matthew DePerno, a lawyer who advanced false election theories, became a folk hero in the state and ran for attorney general. Kristina Karamo, a poll worker who signed an affidavit claiming she had witnessed vote stealing, became a conservative media star and ran for secretary of state. And Meshawn Maddock, the leader of Women for Trump who organized buses to Washington on Jan. 6, became co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party.As co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, Meshawn Maddock blamed big donors for not supporting their candidates and maintained falsehoods about the 2020 election.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesMr. DePerno and Ms. Karamo did not respond to requests for comment. The Michigan Republican Party did not respond to requests for comment. In a video released on Monday night, Ms. Karamo defended her actions as party chair and lashed out at more moderate Republicans she claimed were part of a “uniparty.”Their nominations exposed a rift within the party, with more moderate, traditional Republicans like the DeVos family swearing off both Mr. DePerno and Ms. Karamo and withholding funds from most of the state party. Other donors similarly expressed their frustration. County nominating conventions devolved into open conflict.“Meshawn was never connected to the donor base, and so having her as the vice chair for a lot of us was a showstopper,” said Dave Trott, a former Republican congressman from Michigan who retired in 2018 and is also a former donor to the state party. “Because we just knew she would never be someone that would be rational in her approach to state party politics.”Ms. Maddock, who is no longer involved in the party, responded to Mr. Trott, saying she was “not surprised at all that he takes no responsibility for disappointing Michigan voters or anyone.” “The state party needs the wealthy RINOs who often fund it to come to terms with what the actual voters on the right want,” Ms. Maddock said. “Instead of constantly gaslighting the Republican base, the wealthy donors need to treat them with an ounce of respect for once.”As standard-bearers for the state party during the 2022 midterm cycle, Mr. DePerno, Ms. Karamo and Ms. Maddock all maintained the falsehoods about the 2020 election. In their campaigns, Mr. DePerno and Ms. Karamo placed extra emphasis on the 2020 election, often at the expense of other issues more central to voters.They were resoundingly defeated. Republicans also lost control of both chambers of the State Legislature. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic incumbent, sailed to a landslide victory.Republicans across the state were left pointing fingers. The state party blamed Tudor Dixon, the candidate for governor, for an unpopular abortion stance and anemic fund-raising. Ms. Dixon blamed state party leadership. Ms. Maddock blamed big donors for not supporting their candidates. Ms. Karamo refused to concede.A state party autopsy days after the election, made public by Ms. Dixon, acknowledged that “we found ourselves consistently navigating the power struggle between Trump and anti-Trump factions of the party” and that Mr. Trump “provided challenges on a statewide ballot.”Ms. Karamo, who succeeded Ms. Maddock at the helm, pledged to bring in a new donor class. But those donors never materialized. The party has lost money since Ms. Karamo took over, with under $150,000 in the bank as of June 30, according to federal campaign finance records. At the same time four years ago, the party had roughly three times as much cash on hand.Ms. Karamo and Matthew DePerno are prominent election deniers who stepped into the vacuum of leadership at the state party.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesShe has drawn condemnation from both Republicans and Democrats for her social media posts tying gun reforms to the Holocaust and has faced attempts to limit her power.The party has been plagued by infighting. In April, two county leaders were involved in an altercation, with one filing a police report claiming assault, according to video obtained by Bridge Michigan. In July, a brief brawl broke out during a state party gathering. The chairman of the Clare County Republican Party told police he had stress fractures in his spine, bruised ribs and broken dentures as a result of the fight.A memo circulated this month from the executive director and general counsel of the state party, obtained by The Times, warned of a rogue meeting being advertised under the banner of the state party that was “in no manner properly connected to or arising from the true and real Michigan Republican Party.”The issues facing the party extend beyond infighting and fund-raising; this month, Mr. DePerno, as well as a former Republican state representative and a lawyer, were charged with felonies related to a plan to illegally obtain voting machines. They have pleaded not guilty.“Tell me how that helps. Tell me how that helps get the swing voter,” said Ms. McClain. “Voters don’t care about the infighting. The swing voter wants to know, how are your policies going to help me have a better life for my family?”Prominent Michigan Republicans appear content to let the state party wither. Former Gov. Rick Snyder, among the last Republicans elected statewide in Michigan, has begun a fund-raising campaign directing money away from the state party and directly into the House Republican caucus in a desperate attempt to win back at least one chamber of the State Legislature.(The effort bears some similarities to one Gov. Brian Kemp undertook in Georgia, another state where division over Mr. Trump’s election claims hobbled the state party.)Mr. Snyder’s fund-raising, as well as some activity from the DeVos family network, have filled the coffers of the Republican House caucus, led by Matt Hall, the minority leader in the State Legislature whom many party elites are looking to as the de facto leader. The House Republican Caucus, despite being in the minority, is outpacing the House Democratic Caucus in fund-raising this year, with $2.3 million to the Democrats’ $1.7 million.Mr. Hall also has helped fuel 2020 election doubts. (He once was the chairman of a committee hearing featuring the Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani spreading lies about the election.) But he is far more likely to attack Democrats on spending or “pork” projects.Separate from Mr. Hall’s efforts, the DeVos family and other influential donors have begun raising money for congressional and state legislative races only, forgoing any presidential or Senate races, according to Jeff Timmer, a former executive director of the state party.But the problems looming ahead of next year’s election are not just about money.“What can’t be replicated is the manpower infrastructure,” said Mr. Timmer, who now advises the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group. “You can’t just go out and buy the passion and zealousness of people who will go out knock on doors and put up signs and do all those things that require human labor in a campaign.”Prominent Republicans point to the coming Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference as a sign of how far the state party has fallen. It was once a marquee stop for presidential hopefuls looking to make an impression on the critical swing state, and not a single Republican candidate for president in 2024 is scheduled to make an appearance.Instead, the featured speaker at the September conference will be Kari Lake, who lost her race for governor in Arizona and has since claimed her loss was marred by fraud. More

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      Democratic Group Plans $10 Million Push to Protect Election Officials

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      The group is starting a new venture that will focus on five battleground states: Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Wisconsin.A group that works to elect Democrats as the top election officials in states around the country is planning a $10 million venture to pay for private security for election officials of both parties, register new voters and try to combat disinformation.The group, the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, is starting a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organization called Value the Vote that will initially focus on five battleground states: Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Wisconsin.“We’ve seen our election officials come under threat while they’re just trying to do their jobs, and they’re doing a fantastic job,” said Travis Brimm, the executive director of the Democratic group, who will also serve as president of Value the Vote. “They deserve the ability and the right to feel safe while they’re doing their job.”Mr. Brimm said the new group had raised $2.5 million so far of its $10 million pledge.Since the 2020 election, once-uncontroversial matters of election administration have increasingly become entangled in partisan politics.Election officials have faced increased threats in recent years, and they have been resigning at an alarming rate. Elections for secretary of state also became far more politicized last year, as several Republicans who denied the legitimacy of the 2020 vote sought the office in critical battleground states before ultimately falling short.In turn, the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State grew rapidly after the 2020 election, when former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the results drew attention to the importance of the position. The group went from raising a few million dollars each election cycle to raising and spending more than $30 million in the midterms last year.Officials at the group say they will provide equal funding opportunities to both Democratic and Republican election officials, but how the distribution will work in practice is unclear. Republican officials may hesitate to take money from a Democratic organization, fearing political fallout from fellow conservatives.Mr. Brimm said that election officials could request grants to pay for private security themselves, and that Values the Vote would also proactively offer private security.The introduction of private security with a loose affiliation to a political group could carry risks, however, especially in an era of extreme polarization and partisan distrust in the mechanics of voting.The safety funding is also likely to serve as an early test of new bans on outside funding of elections in Georgia and Arizona, which passed laws after the 2020 election prohibiting private groups from providing financial help to election officials. The bans were rooted in conservative criticism of grants made by an organization with ties to the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg — money frequently called “Zuckerbucks” by right-wing news outlets.Republicans in the North Carolina legislature, who have veto-proof majorities, are currently seeking to pass a bill that would also ban outside money for election officials.Campaign finance experts note that the new laws are untested, and say they include some gray areas that could allow for the security donations.“The 501(c)(4) could theoretically provide security services directly to state election officials or at voting or vote-counting sites without charging for them,” said Brett Kappel, an campaign finance lawyer at the firm Harmon Curran. “It will take a court to decide if that is prohibited donation of services or whether it falls within the exception for services provided without remuneration.”Mr. Brimm said the group was working with a legal team to make sure it was “navigating those laws correctly.”“In some ways, it’s going to be a little bit of a new frontier,” he said.The rest of the initiative hews more closely to traditional campaign tactics and organizing. The group will look to counter election misinformation, including with paid digital advertising, and will begin a voter registration program.And though the group says it will be apolitical, its voter registration efforts align with typical Democratic efforts, focusing heavily on Black and Latino communities, which have tended to back Democrats in greater numbers.“The voter registration piece is about actually getting more people into the process,” Mr. Brimm said. “The people who are not getting access to voter education and voter registration are typically rural communities, typically lower-income communities and Black and Latino or Hispanic communities.” More