In a major win for Hoekstra, the influential DeVos family is once again donating to the state party.
With fewer than six months until election day, newly elected Michigan GOP chairman Pete Hoekstra spends much of his time repairing relationships with legacy donors who were spurned by his predecessor, Kristina Karamo. That outreach is starting to pay off.
Hoekstra tells National Review that former education secretary Betsy DeVos and “several” members of her influential Michigan family have given “significant contributions” to the state party in recent days to help Republicans reach voters this November.
“The DeVos family was very supportive and encouraging when I assumed the role,” Hoekstra said, adding that he and Betsy DeVos, who served as Education Secretary during the Trump administration, have known each other for decades. “It’s a great partnership.”
The stakes are high this cycle in blue-leaning Michigan, the state Donald Trump carried in 2016 and where Republicans are hoping to flip an open U.S. Senate seat this cycle. The new GOP chairman’s success in bringing high-profile legacy donors back into the fold indicates the Michigan GOP is turning the corner after Karamo’s tumultuous leadership. The failed 2022 secretary of state nominee’s eleven-month tenure as state party chairwoman was defined by poor communication, party infighting, lackluster fundraising, and spiraling debt.
“We inherited a mess from a bunch of folks that were not acting professionally,” Hoekstra said in an interview with National Review. “We’re going to be running the GOP as a professional business organization again.”
Under Karamo, the state party had about $35,000 in its bank accounts in August and took out a $110,000 loan to pay actor Jim Caviezel to speak at its conference last year, according to the Detroit News.
Intra-party tensions surrounding Karamo’s leadership came to a head in January, when the state party’s executive committee finally gave her the boot. In her place, they selected Hoekstra, a former Michigan congressman and ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. The transition period was messy. Despite Hoekstra’s endorsements from former Trump and the Republican National Committee, Karamo claimed for weeks that she remained the rightful chair. A county judge’s ruling in February silenced Karamo.
Five months into Hoekstra’s tenure, Michigan Republicans have dozens of staff on the ground and are working out of dozens of field offices, an RNC spokesperson tells NR, with the party’s presence expected to grow more in the coming months. The new hires will operate in concert with the newly announced Trump Force 47 program that is working to recruit and train grassroots volunteers to turn out highly targeted voters in their own neighborhoods.
“We’re building a team, and the great thing is it’s seamless between the Trump operation and our operation,” he says.
The former president will need on-the-ground volunteers to fuel the new canvassing effort his campaign announced in late May. Democrats have opened 32 campaign offices and hired more than 100 staffers in the state to help reelect President Joe Biden and other down-ballot Democrats, a Biden campaign spokesperson told NR.
As Hoekstra works to win back donors, some institutional issues linger. When the chairman gained access to the party’s downtown Lansing office in March, for example, he told the Detroit News his predecessor’s staff left the offices “stripped down to the bare bones.” Hoekstra has yet to find $113,000 worth of computers purchased by his predecessor that have gone missing.
Hoekstra tells NR that he and his team did not receive the party’s financial records from Karamo’s staff until “just before” he filed his first FEC report as chairman in April, which reflected an outstanding debt of $184,000. “Even then, we weren’t sure all the books were accurate,” Hoekstra tells NR. The chairman said last month he is launching a “comprehensive audit” of his party’s own finances and that he “fully expects” to have to release corrections of past reports.
“We continue to work through inherited past issues, but are focused and dedicated on raising money to defeat Joe Biden and the Michigan Democrats,” says Tyson Shepard, the state party’s executive director. “Donors are coming home, and we will have the resources to win in November.”
The party’s fundraising and emerging organizational structure is lightyears ahead of where Republicans were six months ago. When Karamo became party chair in February of last year, donors and outside groups such as former governor Rick Snyder and the Michigan Freedom Fund expected a dysfunctional state party and began creating a separate network to fund Republicans in 2024, Hoekstra said.
“Hallelujah, that they stepped up more than a year ago,” Hoekstra said. “They’ll play a much bigger role than they had in the past. They filled the space where early the state party would have been.”
Hoekstra is now working with that network of outside groups. “Chairman Hoekstra is a welcome part of that coalition,” said Sarah Anderson, executive director of the Michigan Freedom Fund. “We appreciate everything he is doing to help course correct in Michigan.”
Outside Republican groups are expected to play in Michigan on behalf of down-ballot candidates as well. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is dropping seven figures into Republicans’ ground game in the Michigan Senate race on behalf of their preferred candidate Mike Rogers, the former congressman who also has the support of the presumptive GOP nominee. Businessman Sandy Pensler and libertarian Representative Justin Amash are also competing for the party’s U.S. Senate nomination in this year’s August primary.
As Republicans play catch up in the organizational department, Karamo’s old adversaries are counting their blessings that they have a new party leader to right the ship. “Even locally, a lot of people were holding their breath and holding their wallet,” under her leadership, says Anne DeLisle, Michigan GOP’s eighth congressional district chair. “What Pete has done has just inspired confidence that the money is going to be used properly and that it’s going to be used to win elections.”