Right-wing dogfight

(Detroit Free Press) LANSING — About 2,000 Michigan Republicans began voting Saturday morning amid a bitterly divided choice for state party chair, during a convention conducted online due do restrictions on large in-person gatherings because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Incumbent Laura Cox of Wayne County has accused challenger Ron Weiser of Ann Arbor of orchestrating a "sleazy payoff" with party funds and wants delegates to re-elect her only until someone she considers a more suitable successor can be selected. Weiser has accused Cox of trying to falsely smear him in a desperate attempt to hold on to her job.

Results are expected later Saturday.

The unusually public split among party leaders is not over the direction of the GOP after four years of President Donald Trump or the deadly fallout from false claims that the Nov. 3 election was stolen. Both Cox and Weiser are strong backers of Trump. Cox promoted what she called "deeply troubling irregularities" around the election and pushed for delays certifying Michigan's results, while Weiser chose as his co-chair a vocal proponent of election fraud claims who organized busloads from Michigan to the Jan. 6 Washington, D.C., demonstration that preceded the violent storming of the U.S Capitol, in which a Capitol police officer was killed and a rioter shot dead. ............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/02/06/michigan-republican-party-convention-weiser-cox/4418538001/