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LANSING, Mich. Southeast Michigan businessman Kevin Rinke knows hes risking a lot by putting $10 million of his own money into his campaign for Michigan governor.

The Republican candidate also refutes criticism that hes trying to buy an election, calling those claims disingenuous.

Full interview with Kevin Rinke

If you look at this from a business investment, it's not a good investment. Simply put, it's a bad investment, Rinke told FOX 17 in an interview Tuesday. "I'm not looking for a return on this money. I believe this, that I want to show the people of Michigan I have a message. And I want that message to be heard by as many people as possible. So before I ask any Michigander for a dollar, I'm willing to say, 'I'll pay first,' says Rinke.

Rinke, who made a fortune on his family's car dealerships, formally announced his campaign this week, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV and digital ads.

READ MORE: Businessman Kevin Rinke launches campaign for Michigan governor

He says he's made 21 stops across the state, listening to people's concerns about the economy amid the pandemic.

"At the end of the day, a lack of leadership and poor decisions have got us to where we are today and political infighting. And the people don't need more than finger pointing. They need real solutions," says Rinke.

In his first commercial, Rinke drives a classic Pontiac muscle car while comparing incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to a Yugo, a Yugoslavian-made car widely considered one of the worst automobiles ever made.

Like the terrible socialist system it came from, its a pile of junk, Rinke says in the ad.

I don't believe that the career politician has shown leadership skills, and leadership skills mean that you have to have your legislature work together to provide results that the governor can oversee. [Whitmer's] management of the state and her decision making, I believe, are disastrous, Rinke said in our interview.

Rinke also hits on the same issues conservatives nationwide have highlighted: COVID-19 policies, critical race theory, voter fraud and illegal immigration, similar to the 11 other Republicans vying for the GOP nomination in Michigan.

However, he thinks his successful business background separates himself from the field.

"I think it's real business experience and leadership experience," he added.

While he does not believe last year's election was stolen, he would welcome an endorsement from the former president, who continues to push that unfounded claim.

Aaron Parseghian: It's clear that former President Trump still has a big voice in the Republican party. In the past few weeks, we've seen him endorse state House candidates, continuing to make some unfounded claims that the election was some way stolen from him here in Michigan. How important do you think Trump's endorsement is of a potential candidate like yourself? Do you want it? And do you think the election was stolen?"

Rinke: "Well, I think that any past president has a significant influence on a party. So a candidate running within that party would welcome an endorsement from a past president. Does that mean that everything that President Trump says or does is approved by that candidate? And the answer is, of course not. Kevin Rinke is his own man. In regards to the election, I know what I've been able to gather through normal media outlets. I've read about it. And currently, there is no information that says that the election was stolen. I will say that there are significant irregularities that have been exposed in the past election in Michigan."

RELATED: Trump endorses primary challenger to GOP Rep. Meijer

Right away, Rinkes self-funding puts him ahead of the fundraising totals made by the 11 other candidates vying for the GOP nomination, including former Detroit Police Chief James Craig whom many have pointed to as a favorite in the race, Kalamazoo chiropractor Garret Soldano and Norton Shores conservative media personality Tudor Dixon.

The primary takes place in August of next year, the winner of which will face incumbent Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in November. Whitmer's reelection campaign has raised a record-breaking amount of money, more than $17 million so far this cycle.

"TheMichiganGOPs attempt to coronate James Craig as their #1 pick for the GOP nomination has been a massive failure and now their chaotic primary for governor has an extreme self-funder in the race," says Democratic Governors Association Political Director Marshall Cohen, in response to Rinke entering the race. While the GOP candidates oppose overwhelmingly popular initiatives in order to appeal to the radical right wing of their party, Governor Whitmer is puttingMichiganfirst. Shes focused on fixing the damn roads and has made the largest increase in school funding in the states history without raising taxes," he added.

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Republican Kevin Rinke talks Trump, Whitmer and his $10 million campaign for governor - Fox17

The website of the Oklahoma Republican party has a running countdown to the 2024 presidential election measured in Maga days, Maga hours, Maga minutes and Maga seconds Maga being shorthand for Donald Trumps timeworn slogan, Make America great again.

The state party chairman, John Bennett, a veteran of three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has described Islam as a cancer in our nation that needs to be cut out and posted a yellow Star of David on Facebook to liken coronavirus vaccine mandates to the persecution of Jewish people in Nazi Germany.

This is just one illustration of how Republican parties at the state level are going to new extremes in their embrace of Trump, an ominous sign ahead of midterm elections next year and a potential glimpse of the national partys future. Yet the radicalisation often takes place under the radar of the national media.

We are not a swing state and were nowhere near a swing state so no ones looking, said Alicia Andrews, chair of the Oklahoma Democratic party. And because no one is looking at Oklahoma, we are allowed to be way more extreme than a lot of states.

Andrews pointed to the example of a state law passed by the Republican majority in April that grants immunity to drivers who unintentionally injure or kill protesters and stiffens penalties for demonstrators who block public roadways.

Only three states passed it, with Oklahoma being the first, she said. And you know why? Because there wasnt national attention. We were talking about Florida passing it and Texas passing it. No one was even considering what was going on in Oklahoma and it quietly passed in Oklahoma.

Similarly, Andrew argues, while other states were debating critical race theory in schools, in Oklahoma a ban was rammed through with little coverage. Another concern is gerrymandering, the process whereby a party redraws district boundaries for electoral advantage.

Andrews, the first African American to lead the Oklahoma Democratic party, said: Our legislators are in a special session right now to review our maps and they are really eroding an urban core, taking at least 6,000 Hispanic Americans out of an urban district and moving them to a rural district, thus denuding their votes. I didnt think that they could make it worse but they are.

Oklahoma is a deep red state. As of August, its house and senate had 121 Republicans and 28 Democrats. It continues to hold Stop the Steal rallies pushing Trumps big lie that Joe Biden robbed him of victory in the presidential election.

Andrews warns that Republicans in her state are indicative of a national trend.

Their stated strategy is start at the municipal level, take over the state, take over the nation. So while everybodys talking about the infrastructure plan and the Build Back Better plan, theyre rubbing their hands together and making differences in states.

She added: Were like the testing ground for their most radical right exercises, and once they perfect it here, they can take it to other states.

Republican state parties rightward spiral has included promotion of Trumps big lie about electoral fraud, white nationalism and QAnon, an antisemitic conspiracy theory involving Satan-worshipping cannibals and a child sex-trafficking ring. It can find bizarre and disturbing expression.

Arizona staged a sham audit of the 2020 presidential election that only confirmed Bidens victory in the state. Last month in Idaho, when Governor Brad Little was out of the state, his lieutenant, Janice McGeachin, issued an executive order to prevent employers requiring employees be vaccinated against Covid-19. Little rescinded it on his return.

The Wyoming state party central committee this week voted to no longer recognise the congresswoman Liz Cheney daughter of the former vice-president Dick Cheney and a hardline conservative as a Republican, its second formal rebuke for her criticism of Trump and vote to impeach him for his role in the US Capitol attack.

Nina Hebert, communications director of the state Democratic party, said: Wyoming is not exempt from the extremism that Trump has intentionally cultivated and fuelled and continues to court today.

He was a popular figure in Wyoming in the 2016 election and he retains that popularity amongst voters in the state, which I think is the most red in the nation.

Gerrymandering is a longstanding problem, Hebert said, but Trumps gleeful celebration of the 6 January riot has opened floodgates.

They have created situations where Republican-controlled state legislatures have no reason to pretend even that theyre not just trying to hold on to power. This has become something that is acceptable within the Republican party.

The shift has also been evident in policy in Florida, Texas and other states where Republicans have taken aim at abortion access, gun safety, trans and voting rights. Often, zealous officials seem to be trying to outdo one another in outraging liberals, known as owning the libs.

The drift is not confined to red states. When Republicans in California, a Democratic bastion, sought to recall Governor Gavin Newsom, they rallied around a Trumpian populist in the conservative talk radio host Larry Elder rather than a more mainstream figure such as Kevin Faulconer, a former mayor of San Diego.

Kurt Bardella, an adviser to the Democratic National Committee who was once an aide to a leading California Republican, said: To me that was a bellwether. If even a state like California cant get a more moderate, pragmatic Republican party at the state level, theres really no hope for any of the parties in any state at this point.

Theyre leaning so hard into this anti-democratic, authoritarian, non-policy-based iteration and identity. The old adage, As goes California, so goes the country, well, look at what the California Republican party did and were seeing that play out across the board.

Like junior sports teams, state parties are incubators and pipelines for generations of politicians heading to Washington. The primary election system tends to favour the loudest and most extreme voices, who can whip up enthusiasm in the base.

Trump has been promiscuous in his endorsements of Maga-loyal candidates for the November 2022 midterms, among them Herschel Walker, a former football star running for the Senate in Georgia despite a troubled past including allegations that he threatened his ex-wifes life.

Other examples include Sarah Sanders, a former White House press secretary running for governor in Arkansas, and Karoline Leavitt, a 23-year-old former assistant press secretary targeting a congressional seat in New Hampshire.

This week, Amanda Chase, a state senator in Virginia and self-described Trump in heels, announced a bid for Congress against the Democrat Abigail Spanberger. Chase gave a speech in Washington on 6 January, hours before the insurrection, and was censured by her state senate for praising the rioters as patriots.

The former congressman Joe Walsh, who was part of the Tea Party, a previous conservative movement against the Republican establishment, and now hosts a podcast, said: I talked to these folks every day, and for people who think [members of Congress] Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are nuts, they aint seen nothing yet.

The Republicans at the state and local level are way, way more gone than the Republicans in Washington. Were talking about grassroots voters and activists on the ground and eventually, to win a Republican primary at whatever level, every candidate has to listen to them.

So youre going to get a far larger number of wackadoodle Republicans elected to Congress in 2022 because they will reflect the craziness thats going on state and locally right now.

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The testing ground: how Republican state parties grow Trumpism 2.0 - The Guardian

A new poll shows Republican governors winning higher approval from voters than their Democratic counterparts less than one year out from the midterm elections.

The Morning Consult poll released Thursday found that of the 16 most popular governors in America, 14 of them are Republicans.

GOP governors leading Democratic-leaning states earned especially high approval ratings. Four Republicans in states won by President Joe Biden in 2020 top the list.

Governors Phil Scott of Vermont, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Larry Hogan of Maryland all have an approval rating of above 70 percent, the poll found. Biden easily won those three states with at least 65 percent of the vote.

Cameron Easley, senior editor at Morning Consult, told Newsweek in an interview Saturday afternoon that voters in these states give their Republican governors such high approval ratings because they view them as a "hand break" on their liberal state legislatures. He also pointed out that all three have been vocally critical of Trump.

"They're just kind of happy to have some kind of Republican executive who can serve as a check for an extremely liberal legislature," he said.

Easley also said that while Scott, Baker and Hogan enjoy wide popularity in their home states, they aren't likely to be viable in a presidential election because they are too moderate for the broader Republican electorate.

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu has an approval rating of 67 percent in a state Biden won by about seven points, according to the poll.

Other Republican state leaders with high approval ratings include Mark Gordon of Wyoming; Jim Justice of West Virginia; Kay Ivey of Alabama; Mike DeWine of Ohio; Spencer Cox of Utah; Doug Burgum of North Dakota; Greg Gianforte of Montana; Kristi Noem of South Dakota; Eric Holcomb of Indiana; and Mike Dunleavy of Alaska. They represent either solidly GOP or Republican-leaning states.

Only two DemocratsConnecticut Governor Ned Lamont and Rhode Island Governor Dan McKeebroke the top 16, according to the poll.

Three DemocratsMaine Governor Janet Mills, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphyas well as Republican Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson round out the 20 most popular governors, the poll found.

Of the five governors with the lowest approval rating, fourOregon Governor Kate Brown, Hawaii Governor David Ige, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, and New York Governor Kathy Hochulare Democrats. Republican Doug Ducey of Arizona has the second lowest approval rating at 44 percent, according to the poll.

Easley warned against drawing too many conclusions about the 2022 midterm elections from the poll, noting that congressional elections are tied to national issues, while gubernatorial races often focus on local issues.

"The vast majority of these folks are over 50 percent, and I think that's largely a function of state and local politics generally being far less divisive and toxic than our national political scene," he said. "When you're talking about the midterm elections, you're much more tied closely to that kind of national dynamic than that state level dynamic."

Several GOP governors have distanced themselves from former President Donald Trump in recent months, opting to focus on local, rather than national, politics as they seek re-election, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Some Republican governors are facing primary opponents from Trump-alligned Republicansincluding Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, whose opponent is endorsed by Trump.

Former Vice President Mike Pence told the Republican Governors Association that he would support incumbents according to the Journal.

The poll comes less than a year out from the midterm elections, when several governors are up for re-election.

Bolstered by Biden's relatively low approval rating, Republicans are hoping to win back not only governorships in key states but to pick up enough House and Senate seats to win control of Congress.

Other polls have found that Republicans appear to be well-positioned to do so. One released last week found that 51 percent of voters said they would vote for Republicans in congressional elections.

Update 11/20/21, 3:51 PM ET: with comments from Morning Consult's Cameron Easley.

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14 of the 16 Most Popular Governors Are Republicans - Newsweek

Republicans have seized in particular on a March 2020 commission vote lifting a rule that required special voting deputies trained and dispatched by municipal clerks offices to visit nursing homes twice before issuing absentee ballots to residents. The special voting deputies, like most other visitors, were barred from entering nursing homes early in the pandemic, and the commission reasoned that there was not enough time before the April primary election to require them to be turned away before mailing absentee ballots.

The vote was relatively uncontroversial at the time: No lawsuits from Republicans or anyone else challenged the guidance. The procedure remained in place for the general election in November.

But after Joseph R. Biden Jr. won Wisconsin by 20,682 votes out of 3.3 million cast, Republicans began making evidence-free claims of fraudulent votes cast from nursing homes across the state. Sheriff Christopher Schmaling of Racine County said the five state election commissioners who had voted to allow clerks to mail absentee ballots to nursing homes without the visit by special voting deputies as is prescribed by state law should face felony charges for election fraud and misconduct in office.

Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the State Assembly, who represents Racine County, quickly concurred, saying that the five commissioners including his own appointee to the panel should probably face felony charges.

The commissioners have insisted they broke no laws.

Ann Jacobs, a Democrat who is the commissions chairwoman, said she had no regrets about making voting easier during the pandemic and added that even my Republican colleagues were afraid about the future of fair elections in the state.

We did everything we could during the pandemic to help people vote, she said.

Mr. Johnson a two-term senator who said he would announce a decision on whether to seek re-election in the next few weeks is lobbying Republican state legislators, with whom he met last week at the State Capitol, to take over federal elections.

The State Legislature has to reassert its constitutional role, assert its constitutional responsibility, to set the times, place and manner of the election, not continue to outsource it through the Wisconsin Elections Commission, Mr. Johnson said. The Constitution never mentions a governor.

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Wisconsin Republicans Push to Take Over the States Elections - The New York Times

ByAllen Guelzo, Ph.D.,Gettysburg CollegeOnce the treaty with Britain, which came to be known as John Jays treaty, was received by the American government, there was a fear that there would be an explosive reaction. But, the actual proceedings in the Senate were comparatively tame. Federalists held a safe majority there, and the Senate took only two weeks of debate before advising and consenting to Jays Treaty on June 24. The real explosion came once the Senate adjourned and unsympathetic anti-treaty senators released their copies of the treaty to the newspapers.The decision of Washington to resign after his second term gave impetus to the Republican party, which gained ground in the uproar following the Jay Treaty. (Image: George Washington/Public domain)Electrifying News

Benjamin Franklin Baches Aurora hit the streets of Philadelphia with an abstract of the treaty on June 29, followed by a 25-cent pamphlet version of the full text, and from there wrote Madison it flew with an electric velocity to every part of the Union.

Electric was putting it mildly. A Fourth of July parade in Philadelphia turned into a protest riot; on July 18, a mob in New York City burned a copy of the treaty on John Jays front door, and when Alexander Hamilton offered to debate the treaty publicly, he was greeted with a volley of stones. Another public meeting in Philadelphia on July 25 featured Blair McClenachan announcing, What a damned treaty. I make a motion that every good citizen kick this damned treaty to hell.

Learn more about the reaction to Jays Treaty.

It did not help, either, that Washington was delaying putting his signature to the treaty. He had been advised by Edmund Randolph, the Secretary of State, that a new order in Council had been issued which contradicted the treatys 12th article. Washington could not bring himself to sign the treaty until the British assured him that this new order would be revoked.

What Washington did not know was that Randolph had been passing information on to the French minister in Philadelphia. But the French diplomatic correspondence was itself intercepted at sea by the British, and the incriminating revelation of Randolphs duplicity was put into the hands of Washingtons Secretary of War, Timothy Pickering. He met with Washington on August 11 to unveil what the French called the precious confessions of Mr. Randolph.

Thus, on August 18, Washington signed the treaty, and the following day, he personally accused Randolph of treachery and demanded his resignation. The wind went out of the anti-treaty sails with Randolphs exposure, and the Storm, which the business of the treaty threatened to raise, seemed to be blown over.

This is a transcript from the video seriesAmericas Founding Fathers.Watch it now, on Wondrium.

The elections of 1792 were the first intimation of a struggle betweenthe Treasury department and the republican interest; the Democratic-Republican societies of 1794 were a much clearer sign that Americans would cheerfully abandon self-denying public-spiritedness in exchange for organizing in their own self-interest.

The existence of two parties in Congress are apparent, warned Colonel John Taylor in a pamphlet that he published in the spring of 1794, A Definition of Parties, orThe Political Effectof the paper System Considered. The uproar over the Jay Treaty only gave party polarization an unlooked-for boost.

A month after signing the Jay Treaty, Washington released an announcement that he would retire from the presidency in March 1797. This only set off the party race even harder. But the final thread was sewn in the spring of 1796, when the anti-treaty members of Congress, now calling themselves simply Republicans, held their own caucus to endorse candidates for the upcoming presidential election.

Learn more about Jeffersons party.

The principal Republican candidate, it was clear, would be Thomas Jefferson. Since the Constitution mandated that presidential electors vote for two candidates, the caucus supplied a second name from its newer ranks, Aaron Burr of New Jersey. And as if to point up still more new ways for a party to organize, a new cadre of campaign promoters and managers volunteered for election service.

In Pennsylvania, John Beckley a disciple of Jeffersons sowed 50,000 Republican ballots and handbills across Pennsylvania, urging the friends of the people, who love liberty to go to the polls on November 4 and elect fifteen good Republicans as presidential electors who will vote for a republican President. Meanwhile, Philadelphias John Smith, a hatter by trade undertook and performed an election campaign of 600 miles.

But what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander. The Federalist majority in Congress held their own caucus, and produced their own nominees for the presidency: John Adams, the sitting vice-president, and Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina. What was more, Adams enjoyed the blessing of Washington.

But balanced against Washingtons prestige was the tumult over the Jay Treaty, and one member of the Federalist caucus, William Bingham of Pennsylvania, warned Rufus King, who was now American minister to Great Britain, that The friends of Mr. Adams may calculate on a majority in his favor, but so small, that on so momentous an occasion, it would be risking too much to trust entirely thereto. And when the electoral votes were counted on February 8, 1797, it turned out to have been a near-run thing after all. Adams won 71 votes in the electoral college, but Pinckney had tallied only 59. Sixty-eight had gone to Jefferson, thus making the two loggerhead opponents president and vice-president, in what would turn out to be the most unequally-yoked presidential administration in American history.

The public reaction to the Jay treaty was one of anger followed by violent protests. Copies of the treaty were burnt, riots broke out in some places, and people publicly reviled the treaty as probably the worst one in the history of the United States.

It was revealed to Washington that Edmund Randolph, who was advising him not to sign the treaty, was collaborating with the French. Upon realizing this, Washington called for a discussion and confirmed his intention to sign the treaty.

The presidential elections of 1797 were the first time when there were distinct parties, who held independent caucuses to select their own candidates. One party called themselves the Republicans who fielded Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The Federalists fielded Adams and Pinckney.

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The Republican Campaign: The Fallout of Jay's Treaty - The Great Courses Daily News