LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – In what some would call a surprise election victory, failed Michigan GOP Secretary of State candidate and Christian conservative Kristina Karamo was able to fend off eight challengers on Saturday including Trump-endorsed Matt DePerno and become the new Michigan GOP Chair. Karamo is the first Black GOP Chair in Michigan.

The events of the night were reported by Michigan News Source radio affiliate WCHY FM 97.7’s Izzy Lyman who also blogs for Emmet Responsible Government. Lyman was at the convention and tweeted convention activities throughout the day and into early evening.

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Failed Michigan Republican Attorney General candidate DePerno had been seen as a frontrunner after getting the endorsements of former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, General Michael T. Flynn, MyPillow Founder/CEO Mike Lindell and President Trump. Lena Epstein had also endorsed DePerno on Wednesday when she exited the race. Mark Forton had dropped out of the race on Saturday and endorsed Karamo.

In the end, thousands of precinct delegates ultimately decided Saturday that Karamo was the best candidate. They had gathered at the Lansing Center in Lansing on Friday to caucus in their districts and then went on to vote on Saturday for their favorite choice to lead them to victory for the next two years.

No one was able to get above 50% of the vote on the first ballot so Karamo, DePerno and Greenlee moved on to the second ballot. During the second vote, Karamo and DePerno got the most votes and went up against each other on the third ballot. About 11 hours after the convention began on Saturday, Kamaro was finally declared the winner with 58% of the vote to Deperno’s 42%. The convention went on about four hours later than it was scheduled to and the party had to negotiate a deal to be able to stay in the building until 8 pm.

Karamo’s co-chair is Malinda Pego. Under her direction as Vice Chair of the Muskegon GOP they recruited hundreds of volunteers, precinct delegates, and poll workers and Pego has worked tirelessly to bring transparency, accountability and restoration of faith back into the Republican party.

Karamo’s vision for the Republican Party includes restoring the credibility of the Michigan Republican Party, changing the strategy and tactics of the party, prioritizing GOP recruitment, educating the youth in the state, giving precinct delegates control over the party, being transparent and communicative, funding the party, holding GOP official accountable to Constitutional governing and to lawfully fight “aspiring tyrants” according to her campaign website.

Karamo also intends to use Proposition 2 against the Democrats. Proposal 2 was passed by Michigan voters to amend the state Constitution to change voting rules in Michigan.

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Karamo says about Proposition 2, “We will learn to navigate the corrupted election system codified by Proposal 2. While lawfully acting to remedy systemic election corruption, we will also move to convert non-GOP voters to GOP activism. Once the volume of Republican voters and associated activism has increased, ballot initiatives and other actions will be initiated to remedy the effects of the state and nation-destroying Proposals 2 and 3. Then, we will move from a defensive position to a lawfully offensive position – designed to return GOP leadership to using the U.S. Constitution as their measure for internal party accountability, electability, and governing. All this will be made possible by the healing effects of credibility being restored to Michigan Republican Party, which will entice hundreds of thousands of new activists and voters into our party alienated by corrupt leaders.”

At the Traverse City candidate forum in January, Karamo had talked about diversifying the funding. She said that in 2021, 98% of the MI GOP funding came from ten unique donors and in 2022, 96% of the funding came from 25 unique donors. She said it wasn’t a healthy party model where a “handful of people hold on to the purse strings” and those purse strings usually have strings attached. She said the party needs to work with the small business community and that 500K small businesses across the state are Republican.

Karamo will have to unify what many call a fractured state Republican party during a time when the entire state is under Democratic control from the Governor’s mansion to the House and Senate. She will also be leading the state in helping to reclaim the White House and win the Michigan Senate seat when Debbie Stabenow exits – as well as helping to elect local and state Republicans.

Karamo replaces former GOP chair Ron Weiser who didn’t even show up at Saturday’s convention to oversee the festivities. He was booed at the August convention.

On the other side of the political aisle, the Michigan Democrats unanimously re-elected Chair Lavora Bars to her third term at their convention in Detroit last weekend.