Perhaps no state provides as great a microcosm of the current political moment as Michigan, where the state party has been caught in infighting between Kristina Karamo (center), the party’s new chair, and Matt DePerno (right), the GOP’s 2022 attorney general candidate.
Joey Cappelletti/AP Photo

There have been multiple physical altercations at party meetings in the state as tension boils over about the direction of the party. A proxy fight between the two sides over control of a county party has spilled out into court. The Michigan GOP appears to be flat broke as well, with a bit under $147,000 in its federal campaign coffers as of the end of June.

“Everything has fallen off a cliff,” said Jason Watts, a one-time local party leader who was ousted from his post after criticizing Trump and party Covid protocol in 2021. He added that the state party has been reduced to “basically” a “UPS Store P.O. box and an email blast account.”

While Michigan may be the most vivid example of a GOP state party in decline, GOP officials say it’s far from alone.

In Pennsylvania, the state party sold its headquarters last year, sparking concern among some Republicans in the state about its finances. The Democratic state party’s main PAC also outraised its equivalent nearly two-to-one in 2022. One plugged-in Pennsylvania Republican said that the hard-right activists who have won state committee seats in recent years aren’t able to tap wealthy friends for cash in the same way the party’s more establishment-minded foot soldiers in the past could.

“The state committee members are more and more pro-Trump,” the person said. “But they don’t have the money.”

Earlier this spring in Colorado, the state GOP didn’t pay a single employee — if it had any at all — for the first time in 20 years, according to The Colorado Sun. It had just $158,000 banked in its federal account as of last month.

In a statement to POLITICO, Colorado GOP state party Chair Dave Williams, who ran on a 2020 election denial platform, said the party “has sufficient funds to finance its current operations and will have the necessary capital for the 2024 election cycle.” He said the “establishment” had “fleeced donors by the millions and created donor fatigue with their failed strategies and historic losses in Colorado.”

Colorado GOP state party Chair Dave Williams said the party “has sufficient funds to finance its current operations and will have the necessary capital for the 2024 election cycle.”