In a battle of Oakland County Republicans, State Sen. Jim Runestad is the party’s new chairman after defeating former GOP Co-Chairwoman Meshawn Maddock, who had the backing of President Donald Trump.

In the final round of voting Saturday inside Detroit’s Huntington Place convention center, Runestad received support from 63% of about 2,000 Republican delegates, while Maddock, received 37%. Runestad is from White Lake; Maddock is from Milford.

Runestad’s larger-than-expected margin of victory — he acknowledged he won by more than he thought he would — pointed to the lingering power of the anti-establishment wing of the Republican Party in Michigan. The event also demonstrated a trend of convention delegates bucking the wishes of Trump, who won the state’s presidential election less than four months ago.

“The state GOP is going to be a fighting machine against Democrats like never before” Runestad said. “What the delegates here wanted to see was a warrior, a fighter who’s going to take the message to the people across the state of Michigan about the Republican values.”

Runestad, who will continue to serve in the Senate, is known for giving animated speeches in the Capitol and had called for ending “the stranglehold the consulting class has” on dollars the state GOP controls.

“During my 10 years in the Michigan Legislature, I have been ranked as one of, if not the most, conservative legislators every single year,” Runestad said in a video played at the convention. “I have never surrendered our conservative values to special interest temptations.

Maddock has been a longtime Republican activist and among Trump’s most vocal allies in Michigan for a decade. She’s been far from an establishment figure.

For the 2021 convention race, businessman Ron Weiser picked Maddock as his running mate as he successfully sought the chair position in a bid to win over grassroots members of the party.

In July 2023, Maddock was one of 16 Michigan Republicans charged with felonies by Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel for signing a certificate that falsely claimed Trump won the state’s 2020 election.

The charges are still pending. Maddock has denied wrongdoing and labeled the probe a political witch hunt.

At Saturday’s convention, Maddock told delegates that Trump “is always right” and called Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson “the three witches of the apocalypse.”

“I know what it takes to win,” Maddock said. “I know how to convince the White House to support us.”

Scott Hagerstrom, a Michigan Republican activist who helped with Runestad’s successful campaign, said Saturday’s outcome wasn’t a rebuke of Trump.

“Jim was one of the first ones that came out and endorsed him,” Hagerstrom said, referring to Runestad’s past support of Trump.

However, Michigan Republicans suffered losses up and down the ballot in the 2022 election, when Maddock was co-chairwoman, and many supporters of former GOP Chairwoman Kristina Karamo, a grassroots favorite, were skeptical of Maddock’s ties to party leadership. Also, Maddock had been involved in many internal fights over her years as an activist.

Those details loomed over Maddock’s campaign for chairwoman, as did controversial comments she made in the past, including using an anti-gay slur on social media in 2024.

Delegate Tyler Hammock, 36, of Brighton Township, said he favored Runestad on Saturday because of indications from the lawmaker’s past races that he’ll be able to raise money.

“He’s just able to get out and just do the work,” Hammock said of Runestad.

First round of voting

State Rep. Jim DeSana, R-Carleton, said he backed Runestad because of his integrity.

“He’s not wed to any fiefdoms,” DeSana said. “He’s an independent voice, a new voice, even though he’s been in the Legislature.”

Runestad, who’s operated his own insurance company, has been a member of the state Legislature for 10 years.

But he hasn’t been heavily entangled in some of the internal party fights that Maddock has been.

To win the chair job, a candidate needed to get more than 50% of the vote from about 2,000 delegates at Saturday’s convention.

There were initially three contenders in the race.

In the first round of voting, Runestad received 46%, just under the necessary threshold, Maddock received 31%, and Joseph Cella, a former ambassador to Fiji in the first Trump administration, received 23%.

Cella was viewed by some delegates as an old school Republican, and he immediately endorsed Runestad and encouraged his supporters to cast ballots for Runestad after being knocked out.

That set up Runestad for victory, with a broad coalition, in the second and final round of voting.

“It will offer an opportunity to rebuild the party as it needs to be,” Cella said of Runestad winning.

Supporters of Maddock, whose family runs A-1 Bail Bonds in Milford and is married to Republican State Rep. Matt Maddock, had hoped that her work within the party and the Trump endorsement would assist in nudging her victory, despite concerns from some about her ability to raise money.

Rusty Richter, a GOP state committee member from Kent County who backed Maddock, rejected the idea that she would struggle to fund the party’s operations.

“We’ve got the help of one of the greatest fundraisers: President Trump,” Richter said.

The past looms

Before the 2024 presidential election, in which Trump won Michigan by 1.4 percentage points over Democrat Kamala Harris, state Republicans had a frequently raucous and inharmonious two years. Multiple GOP delegates, including Hammock, described Saturday’s convention as “smooth.”

In February 2023, a different set of delegates elected former secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo of Oak Park to be the party’s chairwoman over ex-attorney general candidate Matt DePerno of Kalamazoo, who had Trump’s support.

Karamo was a grassroots favorite who often criticized the party’s strategies and said the previous leadership operated like a “political mafia.” But as chairwoman, she alienated donors and some Republican activists and struggled to raise money. By August 2023, the party had about $35,000 in its bank accounts.

In January 2024, GOP state committee members voted to oust Karamo as chairwoman. They replaced her with former U.S.Congressman Pete Hoekstra. Hoekstra eventually took the state leadership post with Trump’s backing.

Hoekstra, who was ambassador to the Netherlands in the first Trump administration, helped stabilize the party behind Trump. And after Trump’s victory, Trump appointed Hoekstra to be the country’s ambassador to Canada.

The convention crowd still greeted Hoekstra with a max of boos and applause on Saturday. Hoekstra told the crowd that in 2024, there was a “seamless operation” between the Michigan Republican Party and Trump’s team.

“They provided us with everything that we asked for, and we did almost everything that they asked, and we won. We need that same formula in place for the next two years. We need to win on his agenda,” Hoekstra said.

Trump came out in support of Maddock, one of his longtime allies, in a social media post on Thursday.

“Meshawn will be fantastic for the MAGA movement, and I look forward to working with her to make Michigan, and America, great again,” Trump wrote. “Meshawn Maddock has my complete and total endorsement — SHE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”