But underwhelming midterm performances across the board have already ignited a wave of intraparty conflagrations. And as a post-midterm power vacuum in Michigan, New Hampshire and other pivotal states threatens to weaken Trump’s vise grip on state party apparatuses, Republican insiders are jostling for what they believe will be a great resorting.
Some of the first shots fired came via a Michigan GOP memo leaked on Twitter by none other than the state’s defeated gubernatorial candidate, Tudor Dixon. The Nov. 10 memo, authored by state party chief of staff Paul Cordes, blamed “the Trump effect” for the party’s historic losses in the midterms. Two days later, Dixon tweeted that she was weighing her own bid for party chair — possibly challenging the defeated Trump-backed attorney general nominee, Matthew DePerno.
Some Republicans told POLITICO the memo didn’t go far enough in criticizing and identifying the direction of the party, which they said ceded too much power to co-chair Meshawn Maddock to broker Trump endorsements up and down the ballot.
“For the GOP to have any chance in [Michigan] in [2024] the leadership has to be changed in full to someone focused on winning and who is totally dedicated to making sure that the people who are encouraged to win primaries are those who will appeal to the median general election voter,” a Republican operative familiar with the state told POLITICO. “A ton hangs on the decisions that will be made on this in the coming weeks and months.”
Jeff Timmer, the former state party executive director and a senior adviser to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, put it more bluntly. The memo, he said, “was a ‘fuck you’ to the Meshawn Maddocks and the MAGAS.”
In New Hampshire, it’s a similar tale. GOP Chair Steve Stepanek, one of Trump’s 2016 campaign state co-chairs, is likely to face a leadership challenge after Democrats trampled the party’s congressional candidates and brought themselves within a few recounts of taking the state House.