LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) – About 2,000 Michigan Republicans will flood the Lansing Center this weekend to select a new party chairperson and ten people are vying for the top job.

Current chair Ron Wieser is not running, but it seems like everybody else is.

The hopefuls include candidates on the statewide ballot last year. Matt Deperno wanted to be attorney general. He lost.

Kristina Karamo wanted to be Secretary of State. She lost.

Lena Epstein wanted to be on the U of M Board Regents. She lost and has now endorsed Deperno with the hopes of becoming party secretary-treasurer if he wins.

Former President Donald Trump has embraced Deperno, which gives Republicans and the media a chance to determine if Trump still controls enough delegates to basically run the state party.

Scott Greenlee has worked for state Republican candidates before. He finished third in a small poll of 380 delegates, losing to Deperno who finished second with 23% of the vote.

Karamo won with 33% of the vote.

Missing from the convention and underscoring the rift within the state party are Betsy and Dick DeVos and former state Republican Bobby Shostack.

In fact, none of the big-money players have made endorsements in this race for party chair, as they want to change the direction the party has taken.

The establishment fears that whoever wins won’t have the resources nor the desire to change directions, which means the establishment won’t open their checkbooks that were closed last year.  

This is, in part, why the Democrats won just about everything on the ballot last November.