Republicans have been elected to the
governorship of Michigan in 27 of 48 gubernatorial elections. The first was
Kingsley S. Bingham in 1855, and the most recent is
Rick Snyder, who was elected in
2010, and then re-elected in
2014. After President
Richard Nixon resigned due to the
Watergate scandal, Vice President
Gerald Ford became the 38th President of the United States. Ford grew up in
Grand Rapids and served as a U.S. Representative from Michigan from 1949 to 1973. Following the 2016 election and
Reince Priebus' selection to be
White House Chief of Staff, Michigan Republican Party Chairman
Ronna Romney McDaniel became Chairwoman of the
Republican National Committee. Then-President-elect Trump recommended McDaniel in December 2016 to replace Priebus. She was officially elected as RNC chair on January 19, 2017, becoming the second woman to hold the post in RNC history, after
Mary Louise Smith. In January 2021, the Michigan Republican Party sought to replace GOP member Aaron Van Langevelde on the Michigan Board of Canvassers; he had previously voted to certify the Michigan election results in favor of Biden. One of the candidates that the Michigan Republican Party sought to nominate to that position was Linda Lee Tarver, who had been involved in efforts to overturn the election results. In 2021, the executive director of the Michigan GOP resigned after he declined to say that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump; delegates in the Michigan GOP had called for him to be fired for his remarks. Increasing internal divisions within the Michigan Republican Party led to a violent physical brawl at a state committee meeting in 2023, during which one party activist allegedly kicked a committee member in the groin and broke his rib. ==Current elected Republicans in Michigan==