MADISON, Wis. — Under the fluorescent lights of a hotel conference room, the Michigan GOP came together for the most important meal of the day — and perhaps the week — at a kickoff breakfast before making their debut on the national stage at the Republican National Convention following a period of tumult within the state party.
For months, the Michigan Republicans served as a poster child for intraparty strife.
But that's all behind them, said Michigan GOP Chair Pete Hoekstra, who has led the party following the ouster of the previous chair and a protracted battle over the party's top spot.
"We're past that. We're focused on winning," Hoekstra told reporters in the hotel lobby just outside Madison, where the delegation is staying during the convention.
But why is Michigan's Republican delegation staying over an hour's drive from the action in Milwaukee? After all, this group of Republicans hail from a battleground state key to former President Donald Trump's quest to return to the White House. Was it a form of punishment for all of the discord? Hoekstra wouldn't speculate, saying only that it was a decision made several months ago by the Republican National Committee, which he said thought at the time it'd be "a good place for the Michigan Republicans to gather."
Michigan isn't the only state that has seen Republican infighting in the wake of GOP defeats in recent years. But it suffered particularly bruising defeats up and down the ballot in 2022 with Democrats securing reelection to the top three statewide offices and winning control of the state Legislature for the first time in 40 years. Those losses left Michigan Republicans searching for a way to recover, but the divides that played out within the Michigan GOP never seemed to reflect major ideological divisions about the path forward.
Trump-endorsed candidates' losses two years ago didn't reignite a battle between the so-called "Never Trumpers" and Trump loyalists. By that point, Trump's "Make America Great Again" vision had already taken hold of the Republican Party, including in Michigan. Now, at a full-bore MAGA convention that takes place in the wake of a deadly shooting at a Trump rally and an assassination attempt against the former president, Michigan Republicans are ready to join their counterparts across the country to stand with their man.
"We are unified as a party," Hoekstra said when he addressed a roomful of Michigan Republican delegates donning Trump swag and American flags. One woman in attendance nodded her head vigorously in agreement and emphatically responded, "Yes."
Hoekstra delivered some good news for Trump supporters as they ate their eggs and sausages: a federal judge had just dismissed the charges in the case alleging the former president mishandled classified documents because the judge argued the appointment of the special prosecutor overseeing it was unconstitutional.
Hoekstra predicts the same group of Michigan Republicans at the convention will be celebrating again on Jan. 20, 2025 "when we inaugurate Donald Trump," prompting applause and cheers from delegates.
But Jason Watts wasn't clapping. He was sent to Milwaukee as an alternate delegate for Trump's former opponent for the Republican nomination, Nikki Haley. Speaking at the breakfast, he was on track to be elevated to vote at the convention because some Haley delegates skipped the GOP gathering altogether. While Haley has released her delegates and asked them to vote for Trump, Watts didn't say whether he'd heed that call now or in November.
Watts is not a fan of the former president, who he says has rejected traditional Republican values, citing Trump's questioning of the integrity of the country's election system and the former president's opposition to U.S. support for Ukraine. Watts previously expressed feeling politically homeless in today's GOP, which he said prompted death threats against him.
"I didn't leave the Republican Party, they, in some cases, have left me," he said. This summer marks Watts' fourth RNC and while he said he's "still very cordial" with Republicans he knows, he didn't recognize many of the Michigan delegates at the convention this year. "There's a lot of new faces," he said.
One new attendee is Patrice Johnson, who helms election groups that sprung up in the wake of the 2020 election, casting doubt on its administration and helping to recruit new GOP election workers. She said she was "surprised and flattered to be nominated" to go to her first convention. Just a couple of days ago she was at a meeting for Pure Integrity for Michigan Elections — one of the groups she chairs — when she learned Trump had been injured in the shooting at the rally. At the Stockbridge Community Center, she interrupted the meeting to share the news. "We had a prayer for him and then we talked about how good it was that we could all be together during this time," she said.
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It's a time that marks the first assassination attempt against a presidential candidate in several decades. A time that has also seen the first felony convictions of a former president, among other unprecedented developments this campaign cycle. But at least one political tradition carried on. State Rep. Bill Schuette, R-Midland, poured coffee to Republican delegates at the hotel breakfast Monday morning. It's a habit passed down by his father — former U.S. Rep. and former Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette — who started picking up pots of coffee at local GOP gatherings during his first run for office to connect with voters.
Schuette — the state representative — said in the wake of the tragic shooting at the Trump rally, Republicans seem to have embraced a kind of strength and resilience.
"It's like that image of President Trump putting his fist in the air. That's the spirit of America, right?" he said. "And that again I think is a split screen of the Republicans versus the Democrats right now. The Democrats are divided. They have a nominee who people question even his physical fitness for office. Meanwhile, we have a nominee who literally took a bullet and is coming on and going strong."
That's Trump, the nominee most if not all Michigan Republicans planned to support at the convention. As they made the trek to Milwaukee on chartered buses that filed out of the hotel parking lot, they seemed to have already made a long journey from the disunity that defined the start of a crucial election year.
Contact Clara Hendrickson:chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on X, previously called Twitter,@clarajanehen.
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