Progress with an asterisk for Michigan Republicans

From the convention floor to the hallways, I spent the day inside the Michigan GOP’s Saturday convention. What stood out was not chaos, but normalcy.

For the first time since roughly 2019, the Michigan Republican Party looked like a functioning political party instead of a collection of factions, grievances, and procedural knife fights. The theatrics were subdued. The fringe didn’t dominate. And, most importantly, the party made serious choices about candidates.

That alone marks progress.

WARREN BACKS POPULIST PRIMARY CANDIDATES IN MAINE AND MICHIGAN

But step back, and the stakes are bigger.

Michigan is one of the most important battlegrounds — a state that has twice backed President Donald Trump, in 2016 and again in 2024, and will remain central to the Republican path to the White House. Yet at the state level, Republicans have been in steady retreat.

In 2018, Democrats swept every statewide office after eight years of a