Former President Donald Trump seems to be racking up legal wins against those trying to keep him from the ballot before he gets the actual primary wins, early next year.
Now don't get all over me about my assuming he's going to get primary wins early next year — I'm able to read the polls just as well as you are. Anything could happen between now and then but it's just the way I'm starting this article.
So stop yelling at me before you actually start yelling at me.
Before I get to the meat of this article, let's start off with the happy news that my RedState colleague Ward Clark covered here Tuesday.
NEW: Michigan Judge Rules Trump to Remain on 2024 Ballot
On Tuesday, Michigan Judge James Redford ruled that Donald Trump will remain on the Michigan Presidential ballot for 2024.
A Michigan judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit that tried to use the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban” to remove Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot.
The judge separately ruled that Michigan’s secretary of state doesn’t have the power under state law to determine Trump’s eligibility for office based on the constitutional amendment.
The rulings mark a major victory for the former president, who has a commanding lead in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race, according to recent polling.
Ward continues in his article regarding an interesting factoid of the decision.
Here's the really interesting part of the Michigan decision:
Michigan Court of Claims Judge James Redford said in his decision Tuesday that questions about Trump’s role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection – and whether it constitutionally bars him from returning to the White House – should be addressed by elected representatives in Congress. He ruled that the matter was a “political question” that shouldn’t be decided by the judicial branch.
A court disqualifying Trump would’ve taken that decision away from “a body made up of elected representatives of the people of every state in the nation, and gives it to but one single judicial officer, a person who no matter how well-intentioned, evenhanded, fair and learned, cannot in any manner or form possibly embody the represented qualities of every citizen of the nation,” Redford wrote.
As Ward points out, this is happening across the country where rabid progressives are worried that Trump's other legal troubles are NOT that serious, and they are trying other measures to keep him off the ballot. Those efforts are failing also as they should be.
Yet once again, my beloved state of Michigan has to be unique in classic Blue State Michigan Style, and take a significant, meaningful victory and throw it to the side of the road.
Why?
The Michigan GOP is currently a colossal dumpster fire and it might take the emptying of three of the Great Lakes to put it out.
In case you are coming across my writings for the first time, I have covered Michigan politics and, in particular, the Michigan GOP for most of the time I've been a writer here at RedState. Since February of this past year, I have had a particular focus on the new Michigan GOP chair, Kristina Karamo, who I believe should not have been elected not only to that position but to any other.
She is just that bad of a leader.
Now, I always have to clarify that I'm sure she's a nice person. I met her briefly at a campaign event, and nothing stood out about her to me as bad. Many people that I know — and I trust their insight — say she is very well-meaning. I have no doubt that this is true and accurate but in the world of politics, it can be absolutely meaningless.
With all of her well-meaning acts, she has run the Michigan GOP right into the ground. With less than a year before a presidential election, I don't see how a Republican candidate can win a blue state with no solid apparatus on the ground.
Here is just the latest example of why this party is wrecked in the Great Lake State.
From that article
As I wrote here recently, about the direction of the party.
With Just Over 30k in the Bank, the Funeral March Has Begun for the Michigan GOP
From an article, I read today that should seal the deal for Karamo to take her own advice and pound sand.
A listing of Michigan Republican Party account balances from West Michigan Community Bank showed $35,051 across seven accounts, with expenses for many of the scheduled speakers at the Sept. 22-24 conference on Mackinac Island not yet paid, including author Dinesh D'Souza and unsuccessful former Arizona candidate for governor Kari Lake.
At this point, 13 months before a presidential election, the Michigan Republican Party should have about $10 million in its accounts, said Tom Leonard, a former Michigan House speaker and former finance chairman for the state GOP.
The party had less than 1% of the $10 million target.
You should have 10 million dollars this far out from a PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION and you have less than 1%? Sign me up for this leadership team to lead the state GOP to victory. Hell at this rate the Get Out The Vote strategy and money raising is going, Trump could lose this state by even more than he did in 2020.
Karamo went on in the article listed above to say this.
During a closed-door state committee meeting on Sunday, the final day of the Mackinac conference, Karamo spoke about the health of the Michigan Republican Party's finances, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The News.
"The party is not going bankrupt," Karamo told state committee members.
Just about a month later, a resignation letter from someone on the budget committee spilled all the tea, confirming what was said above is 100 percent true.
The Michigan Republican Party is considering how to deal with "imminent default" on its line of credit, according to a resignation letter from a member of the state GOP's budget committee.
The message, obtained Thursday by The Detroit News, reveals the seriousness of the financial problems facing a party in a battleground state a year before the 2024 presidential general election. Kristina Karamo, the Michigan GOP's chairwoman, has struggled to raise money after rising to power in February while railing against the party's "establishment," including past donors.
Jessica Barefield of Livingston County serves on the Michigan Republican Party's state committee, which features about 100 members. She also had been one of 13 Republicans on the influential budget committee, helping to oversee the finances. Barefield said in a resignation letter the budget committee had a Friday "emergency meeting" when the panel "was asked to weigh in on action steps regarding the imminent default on the line of credit," indicating the party is struggling to meet its obligations to pay back its past debts.
I'm going to take a leap of faith here and say that those of you who have chosen to be VIP members (Thank you for that!) are a little more serious about reading, learning, and acting upon your personal preference with political issues and or activism. So I'm sure that you already know that as popular as any candidate might be, if they don't have an established ground game in whatever race they're running, they probably won't win.
Donald Trump did not win in Michigan with his stunning victory in 2016 by a landslide. He won by 11,000 votes with just over four million cast. No Republican had won this state since George H.W. Bush in 1988, and there was a reason for that.
Michigan, across the board, has been trending blue.
Yes, I know the die-hard activists in this state look at a map of the 83 counties and say, "But the majority of the state is red." Except for the fact that almost four-and-a-half million people live in the four counties in southeast Michigan surrounding the city of Detroit, and that counterbalances the rest of the people in the state.
People vote, counties don't.
The super ironic thing about this is that in 2016, the Michigan GOP was a fully functioning state party. They had an apparatus on the ground and had people in all 83 counties, and their get-out-the-vote machine, while possibly not the best it's ever been, was adequate enough to do the job.
The state chairperson for that election cycle is now the national GOP chair, a lady by the name of Ronna McDaniel.
Donald Trump was so impressed with the job that Ronna did, he hand-picked her to run the national GOP. If you are a regular RedState reader, you have an idea how that has been going.
RNC Chair McDaniel Faces Criticism and Calls for Her Resignation After Years of Failure
Believe it or not, though, the current leader of the Michigan GOP makes the national leader look like Lee Atwater from the Bush 88 campaign.
I'm glad that the judge here in Michigan made the right decision and will not interfere with the voters' ability to choose their preferred candidate, both in the primary and the general election next year.
I'm just pretty certain as we stand here today, not a lot of Republicans are going to be elected because the current leadership of the Michigan GOP is more concerned with looking strong rather than actually standing strong.
That doesn't win elections.
