Trump turns Michigan into MAGA proving ground

At a “MAGA mixer” in a banquet hall upstairs from a bowling alley on Saturday night, a room full of Michigan Republicans erupted in applause when a state House candidate said protesting outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 — and getting tear-gassed — was a “highlight of my life.” They nodded knowingly when a state Senate candidate — who drew controversy at a previous event for telling Republicans to “show up armed” to monitor ballot counting — said he’d decided this time not to have his campaign livestream his remarks. “Everybody in this room,” said Mick Bricker, another legislative candidate, “is running to oppose the RINOs who have taken over our House and Senate in this great state of Michigan.” The three candidates, all of them endorsed by Donald Trump, are part of a great experiment currently taking place here. Of all the states where the former president and his allies are purging the GOP of traditionalist conservatives, Michigan has emerged as perhaps MAGA’s most critical proving ground, a place where Trump’s level of intervention up and down the ballot is unmatched.

His success — or failure — in electing his unofficial slate will serve as a measure of his clout within the GOP. But it will also signal whether he has rehabilitated his standing in a key battleground — one of the five states that flipped to Joe Biden in 2020. “Obviously he sees the importance of Michigan as a swing state,” said Matt Marko, president of suburban Detroit’s North Oakland Republican Club, said after a candidate debate last week. “He’s trying to maintain his support.” In Michigan, Trump has already endorsed 10 state legislative candidates, far more than in any other state. He has chosen sides in close to a half-dozen congressional races — including against the two House GOP incumbents who voted for his impeachment — and endorsed candidates for two statewide offices. Late last month, Trump penned a letter to state party delegates on behalf of a candidate for attorney general. His commitment to remake the state’s political order has not been lost on his supporters. Borrowing a page from single-issue advocacy groups, they are pressing candidates to answer a questionnaire that prompts them, among other questions, to “define a RINO” and say if elected officials should be “replaced for ignoring evidence of fraud.”