State Republican parties in about half of the most important battleground states are mired in varying degrees of dysfunction, debt and disarray.
In Arizona, the chairman of the state Republican Party recently resigned after a tape leaked in which he appeared to offer a bribe to persuade a candidate to drop out of the Senate race.
In Georgia, the state party’s coffers have shrunk by more than 75 percent as it has spent more than $1.3 million in legal fees through 2023, mostly to defend fraudulent voters facing criminal charges, including its former chairman party. And in Nevada, the party chairman is being indicted for his role as voter fraud in the 2020 election.
With former President Donald J. As Trump tightens his grip on the Republican presidential nominee, the widespread problems have increasingly worried top Republican officials. There is no explanation for the lopsided party races in the swing states that matter most for the presidency. But across the map, state parties have become battlegrounds for the broader struggles within the GOP between the party’s old guard and Trump’s rising wing, with rifts that could prove divisive and costly.
The situation is particularly acute in Michigan, where a vicious power struggle remains unresolved. Pete Hoekstra, the new chairman of the party officially recognized by the Republican National Committee, remains locked out of state party servers and emails by the person attached to the position, Kristina Karamo. This fight comes as questions grow about where all the money in the state has gone.
A top House Republican lawyer wrote an unusually acidic letter last month to the Michigan state party, accusing party officials of “inexplicably” squandering $263,000 given to them by the House Republican campaign arm on “extravagance” and unnecessary spending that would do next to nothing to help Republicans retain the House.
“We are increasingly concerned,” the general counsel of the campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee, wrote in the letter.
Strategists who have worked on past presidential campaigns say state parties matter and that, when effective, they can serve as some of the most important invisible and invisible forces in national politics. They provide an efficient way for the national party to pump cash into key states and coordinate field operations up and down the ballot, while allowing campaigns to tap into cheaper postage and unrivaled local expertise.
Mike DuHaime, a veteran of multiple presidential campaigns and former RNC political director, said the work of state parties is critical.
“It’s a lot of the blocking and tackling that definitely doesn’t get covered in a conversation, or doesn’t get the same number of eyeballs as a TV commercial,” he said. “It really can be the difference between a point or two. In a state that’s decided by about 1 percent or 2 percent, that can make a difference.”
Not all state problems are about ideology. In Florida, a perennial battleground state that looks less competitive in 2024, the state’s GOP ousted its president last month after police confirmed he was under criminal investigation for sexual assault.
Inside the Trump operation, there is frustration at the sorry state of affairs in the major state parties. But Chris LaCivita, whom Mr. Trump would like to install as the RNC’s chief operating officer once he becomes the party’s presumptive nominee, said those woes were troubling but not insurmountable.
“The challenges that a handful of state parties have have not risen to a level that would prevent them from fulfilling their electoral responsibilities,” Mr. LaCivita said, adding that the campaign was excited for new leaders in Michigan and Arizona, and the two called “robust”.
From now on, Republicans won’t be able to count on the RNC to make up for it financially.
The national party entered February with $8.7 million in the bank. Party officials have discussed tapping a line of credit to keep operations going until the nominating contest is over and more funds arrive. Some of the Trump team’s frustration is directed at the RNC for allowing state parties to falter without adequate oversight and training.
And beyond the financial woes, the national party has seen other potential upheavals as Mr. Trump named his pick to replace Rona McDaniel as chair — though Ms. McDaniel has not yet technically resigned. Mr. Trump’s pick, Michael Whatley, is the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, and his elevation could create another opening for a state Democratic polity
The RNC recently told members it would hold a March 7 training meeting in Houston, which some see as a possible rally for Ms. McDaniel’s replacement if, as expected, she steps down after Saturday’s South Carolina primary.
The January letter to the Michigan caucus from House Republicans, first reported by The Detroit News, is a sign of how state parties can form an important cog in the larger political machine. National Congress leaders had pooled money and transferred a share to the state party in the hope that it would be spent on key House races there instead of “rich conferences”. The party entered February with less than $75,000 after accounting for debts.
“These do not appear to be the actions of a party state that adheres to conservative principles. or frankly, someone who has the desire or ability to elect Republicans to office,” House GOP adviser Erin Clark wrote in the letter.
Some Republicans acknowledged the state party’s woes but downplayed their significance.
“We’ve had dysfunctional state parties and we’ve won everything, and we’ve had really capable people and we’ve lost everything,” said Daniel Scarpinato, who served as chief of staff to Doug Ducey, the former Arizona governor who clashed with his leadership. state party. “I really don’t think it matters that much,” he said, beyond the reduced postage.
Democratic state parties aren’t nearly all well-oiled machines, but some Democrats see problems for Republicans at the state level as an opportunity. President Biden has been fundraising with the national party and in each state, and Mr. Trump is expected to eventually do the same.
“State parties are really important partners, especially in House races,” said Rep. Susan Del Ben of Washington, the chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Dysfunction absolutely matters.”
For Republicans in Arizona, simmering mistrust and division surfaced in January. Kari Lake, the leading Republican candidate for the Senate, has released a recording made last year in which then-party chairman Jeff DeWitt appeared to ask her to name a price to prevent her from running for the Senate in 2024.
The secret recording sent chills across the state party. Mr. DeWit soon resigned and was replaced by Gina Swoboda, who worked on Mr. Trump’s 2020 campaign and has been involved in the fruitless hunt for voter fraud ever since. The Arizona Republican Party has seen its fundraising efforts fall short of what the party did four years ago. factoring in outstanding debts, the party has about half as much cash this year as in January 2020, according to the most recent campaign finance reports.
In Georgia, the former president, David Shafer, was among those indicted for their roles in the extensive effort to subvert the 2020 election in Georgia, including organizing an unofficial voter table after the 2020 race. As he left, Mr. Shafer wrote in an exit note that the state party had endorsed the list of electors and had “voted to ratify their acts and pay their legal costs.” The result: Some of the biggest expenses for the party in recent months have been on lawyers representing Mr. Shafer and other 2020 proxy fraud voters who have faced charges, totaling about $1.3 million.
The party entered 2023 with $1.7 million, but entered February with less than $400,000.
“Obviously there are resources to spend on this that we would otherwise spend on political action,” said Josh McCune, the current chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. But he defended the spending as necessary to protect people from what he described as excessive prosecution, arguing the party was “the only thing standing between these people and financial oblivion”.
Gov. Brian Kemp, Republican of Georgia, has long been at odds with the state party. In 2021, he signed a law allowing him to create his own political committee that can receive unlimited donations. Some Republicans thought he might have thawed the rift when Mr. Kemp’s name — and that of the state House speaker — appeared above a fundraising invitation for a gala last week.
But it turned out that the governor and the speaker did not attend, despite the fact that their names were on the invitation.
Georgia isn’t the only state where sticking to Mr. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election has proven costly.
In Nevada, Michael McDonald, the longest-serving chairman in the history of the state party, is facing indictment for his role as voter fraud, although that has not affected his power in the state party (the state’s national RNC commissioner was also indicted). . Mr. McDonald was instrumental in significantly reshaping the state’s influential primary contest, tilting the rules in Mr. Trump’s favor by effectively blocking a super PAC that would have helped the former president’s opponent, Gov. Ron DeSandis of Florida, and keeping them delegates tied to the caucus system as opposed to more open primary voting.
Mr. McDonald and officials of the Nevada Republican Party did not respond to requests for comment.
Party officials elsewhere worry that weakened or fragmented state parties – unable to organize a unified state operation and field campaign – can make the difference in elections decided by narrow margins.
“What are we going to do?” asked Oscar Brock, a member of the Republican National Committee from Tennessee. “It’s going to be difficult when you have disorganized or messy state party situations.”
