A divide within the Michigan Republican Party widened at a meeting Saturday in Houghton Lake.
Kristina Karamo, one of two people actively claiming the party chair's title, hosted a gathering of GOP state committee members. According to party communications, those members voted 59-1 to re-affirm Karamo as the party's leader, after a separate vote earlier this month sought to remove her from the position.
“The matter has been settled,” Karamo said in a video posted to the party’s social media on Saturday afternoon.
Karamo set up the meeting in Roscommon County, which took place during heavy snow fall and winter storm conditions, in response to her opponents' efforts to oust her in Oakland County.
On Jan. 6, a group of around 45 state committee members and proxies voted to strip Karamo of her leadership position at a meeting in Commerce Twp. Her general counsel, Daniel Hartman was also targeted.
The dissenters placed the title of interim chair on Malinda Pego, who has served as Karamo’s co-chair.
“Petitions with the required signatures requesting the meeting and vote to remove former Chairwoman Kristina Karamo and former General Counsel were submitted accordingly and pursuant to the Michigan Republican State Committee Bylaws prior to the vote taken. The vote passed exceeding the needed threshold,” a statement from Pego dated Jan. 6 read.
But Karamo refused to accept the results of that meeting. Her team issued a report a couple days later detailing why the party apparatus she controlled saw the vote as illegitimate.
This weekend’s meeting was billed as a chance to have a vote on Karamo’s leadership. But the meeting, mostly of her supporters, took it beyond that.
According to a party press release, members present voted to deny recognition of the other faction's Jan. 6 meeting. They also agreed to suspend Pego and six of her allies’ affiliations with the Michigan GOP for five years.
In a statement released Saturday night, Pego wrote that party business conducted at the meeting was “not authorized nor permitted.” She continued to claim the title of “acting chair” of the Michigan Republican Party.
“I will continue to stand up against these types of attacks against our representative republic,” Pego wrote.
Pego previously sent an email canceling the Jan. 13 meeting due to winter storm conditions. She said the party's next gathering on Saturday, Jan. 20, will be “an official meeting to elect a new chair” again, this time in Lansing.
“We the undersigned Michigan Republican Party District Chairs and Vice Chairs hereby recognize the results of The Michigan Republican State Committee meeting of January 6, 2024,” a letter released Saturday from nine of the party’s congressional district chairs and a handful of other party officials read.
On one side of the fractured party, Karamo and her supporters maintain control of party infrastructure, including its website and social media accounts.
On the other side, Pego and her supporters have set up an alternate website. The Detroit News reports they plan to sue to have the court system work out the matter.