Increasing concerns are being voiced by Republican party officials regarding the potential impact of ongoing dysfunction within several state Republican parties on the GOP’s prospects in the 2024 elections. The fear is that the eventual Republican presidential nominee could be left without the necessary party infrastructure in crucial battleground states.
The concerns stem from recent events including the removal of two state Republican Party chairs in Michigan and Florida, financial difficulties, ideological disputes, and personal scandals that have plagued the parties in Michigan, Florida, Arizona, and Georgia. In Nevada, the party is dealing with the repercussions of its chair and vice chair being indicted in a 2020 fake electors case.
These states are expected to play a pivotal role in the 2024 races for control of the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the presidency. Oscar Brock, a member of the Republican National Committee from Tennessee, expressed his concerns, stating, “Any time that you have a state party that’s dysfunctional and suffering from financial problems – which comes with dysfunction – you’re going to have a hard time having a unified campaign in the fall to elect Republicans.”
The ongoing dysfunction has prompted some local and national Republican officials to explore alternatives to working closely with state parties. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, after clashing with state loyalists allied with former President Donald Trump, established his own organization to bypass the party’s fundraising efforts. In states such as Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin, Republicans have increasingly relied on national outside groups like Americans for Prosperity or Turning Point USA to fulfill some of the roles that state parties traditionally held.
However, the chaos within state parties has motivated Republicans to seek alternatives to fulfill the roles that state parties usually do, according to Ron Kaufman, a member of the Republican National Committee from Massachusetts. He stated, “The RNC has built the best databank in the history of the party. And the state parties rely on the RNC and we ship them the data. So we have the data. It’s a question of who we ship it to, so to speak.”
Recent weeks have seen two state party chairs ousted from their positions by local Republican officials. Florida Republicans voted to remove chairman Christian Ziegler amid a sexual assault investigation, while in Michigan, chair Kristina Karamo was voted out after months of internal feuding and financial struggles.
Despite these challenges, both the Florida and Michigan Republican Parties have expressed confidence in their ability to move forward and achieve success in the 2024 elections.
However, the ongoing internal issues within a number of state parties, particularly in states crucial for any Republican nominee to win, have raised alarm among veteran Republican state party officials. Jason Shepherd, a longtime Georgia Republican activist and former Cobb County Republican Party chairman, emphasized, “The job of the Republican Party, the job of the Democratic Party, the job of any party is to get their nominee elected whether you like the nominee or not.”
Henry Barbour, a longtime member of the Republican National Committee from Mississippi, warned that the stakes are already high for the party and the chaos could prove costly by the time voters go to the ballot box in November. He stressed, “The party, being the state party or the national party, has a fundamental job to help candidates be position for victory and to do the ground game and the data and so much of the infrastructure work of campaigns.”
For candidates in these states, they now have to figure out a way to recalibrate with an absence of a healthy state GOP. Barbour stressed, “The party has a real job to do and its one job is to win elections. That’s its only job -and we have failed just looking at the last few cycles.”