Attorney Matt DePerno withdraws Michigan Supreme Court bid on eve of MIGOP convention

FLINT — Attorney Matthew DePerno withdrew his bid for a seat on the Michigan Supreme Court on the eve of Saturday's Michigan Republican Party state convention in Flint, which was also intended to select party nominees for three Michigan university boards and the State Board of Education.

For the Michigan Supreme Court, state Rep. Andrew Fink, R-Hillsdale, was elected to run for an eight-year term and Branch County Circuit Judge Patrick O'Grady was elected to run for a partial, four-year term.

After a long and sometimes contentious day, during which former Michigan Republican Party Chair Kristina Karamo showed up on the convention floor and was soon escorted out by police, other results of the first ballot, which were counted by hand, were not available at press time. Karamo said she attended to support a candidate and was causing no disruption when she was escorted out by "thugs." The party chair who replaced Karamo, Pete Hoekstra, said she was not a registered delegate and was offered a guest pass to observe from the gallery, but declined. About 4,000 delegates, alternates and guests attended the convention, officials said.

DePerno rose to prominence through an unsuccessful lawsuit that made false claims that vote-counting equipment manipulated 2020 election results in Michigan's Antrim County to benefit President Joe Biden and harm Republican Donald Trump. DePerno was the Michigan GOP nominee for attorney general in 2022, losing to Attorney General Dana Nessel, the incumbent Democrat, by about 8 percentage points.

DePerno, of Portage, is awaiting trial on felony charges related to allegedly breaching election machines. The prospect of him being elected by delegates as a Michigan Supreme Court candidate was a point of interest going into Saturday's GOP state convention at the Dort Financial Center in Flint. But DePerno sent delegates an email late Friday that said he is withdrawing his bid to be the party's nominee for a four-year term on the court, a race in which he would have faced incumbent Justice Kyra Harris Bolden.

"I’ve come to the conclusion that I can best help President Trump win Michigan by making sure that we have the strongest absentee and early vote program anywhere in the country — stronger than the Democrats," DePerno said in the email. "It is stronger than anything Republicans have done in our history.

"Therefore, I am withdrawing my nomination for Supreme Court and asking fellow delegates to dig deep and think hard about which of the candidates for each of these positions would make the strongest ticket in November."

DePerno said he was endorsing O'Grady for the partial term he was seeking and joining Trump, the former Republican president, in endorsing Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Mark Boonstra for the full eight-year term on the court. The other candidate for the four-year term was Detroit attorney Alexandria Taylor. The other candidate for the eight-year term was Fink.

Campaign finance records show DePerno had raised just over $100 for his Supreme Court bid, far less than any other candidate.

DePerno gained prominence by seizing on a clerical error in Antrim County that scrambled the county's unofficial 2020 presidential results and using it to make false claims about manipulation of election results by Dominion Voting Systems machines. He is awaiting trial on multiple felony counts related to an alleged conspiracy to breach voting machines.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or [email protected]. Follow him on X, @paulegan4.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: DePerno drops Michigan Supreme Court bid on eve of MIGOP convention