With less than a week to go before  2000-plus delegates meet to choose a new Republican state chairman, signs are that the successor to outgoing Chairman Pete Hoekstra will also be a conservative and someone committed to ending the party’s debt and axing a controversial consultant.

The growing national attention on who sits at the helm of the Michigan Republican Party is based in large part on the historic importance of the state in 2026: for the first time, both the governorship and U.S. Senate seat will be open (Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is termed out and Sen. Gary Peters is retiring; both are Democrats).

Moreover, having captured control of the state House of Representatives last fall, Republicans are within one seat of a tie in the 38 member Senate and could easily win control of the chamber in ’26.

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