The Michigan SoS Race: The Only Candidate Who Can Beat the Democrat
Part 2 of our convention series. The case for Anthony Forlini for Secretary of State is just as strong as the case for Doug Lloyd for AG — and for the same reasons.
In my last piece, I laid out the case for Doug Lloyd for Attorney General and why nominating Kevin Kijewski would be handing Democrats another win. If you haven’t read it, start there.
Now let’s talk about the other race that is perhaps even more critical for Republicans to win: Secretary of State.
The same principle applies. Instead of about 4.5M primary voters, only about 2000 delegates will decide who our party nominates. There’s no safety net. Our choice goes straight to the general election ballot.
And what we choose will either boost the entire Republican ticket or blow it up.
Why This Race Matters
The Secretary of State race may be the single biggest opportunity Republicans have on the statewide ballot in 2026.
Why? Because most independents and even many Democrats are sick of Jocelyn Benson. Eight years of partisanship, lack of transparency, and ideological overreach have created a rare opening. Michiganders across the political spectrum want someone who will administer our elections with fairness, transparency, and professionalism — as a nonpartisan public servant, not an activist.
That means the right Republican nominee doesn’t just win this race — they can pull independents toward the entire ticket. The wrong nominee does the opposite. And we learned the hard way about that in 2022.
All three Republican candidates — Anthony Forlini, Amanda Love, and Monica Yatooma — share essentially the same platform: transparency, election integrity, removing Michigan from ERIC, and restoring trust in the office. The platform is not the differentiator. The question is who is most qualified to do the job and who is most likely to win in November.
If we make this decision based on personal loyalty, or who we think we’ll have more personal access to, or who tells us what we want to hear the loudest — we could be helping to deliver this office to another partisan Democrat.
The Case for Anthony Forlini
Anthony Forlini has been in public service for over 20 years, doing exactly the kind of work the Secretary of State does at a statewide level. His record speaks for itself.
Macomb County Clerk and Register of Deeds (2021–Present). Forlini runs elections right now in one of Michigan’s largest counties — over 900,000 residents. His office manages voter registration, ballot preparation, tabulation, post-election canvassing, and compliance. He also oversees vital records, concealed pistol licensing, notary commissions, and assumed name registrations. This is a direct parallel to the Secretary of State’s diverse portfolio.
Michigan House of Representatives (2011–2016). Three terms representing District 24. Chaired the Financial Services Committee. Served on Appropriations. Left due to term limits.
Harrison Township Supervisor (2004–2011). Managed full township government: public safety, public works, parks, and budgeting.
He Has Beat Democrats — Three Times Over Incumbents
This is the part that should get every delegate’s attention.
It is extremely rare for a Republican to beat a Democratic incumbent in a general election. Forlini has done it three times, across three different offices:
2004: Harrison Township Supervisor — defeated the Democratic incumbent to win the office. Re-elected in 2008.
2010: Michigan House District 24 — defeated incumbent State Rep. Sarah Roberts (D) with 50.2% of the vote in a district that had leaned Democratic for decades.
2020: Macomb County Clerk — defeated incumbent Clerk Fred Miller (D), a former state representative and congressional aide, winning 50.8% (237,837 votes).
He then won re-election to the House twice more (54.7% in 2012, 58.5% in 2014) and won re-election as County Clerk in 2024 with 57.8% — 277,290 votes.
The scoreboard: Forlini 6 partisan general election wins, Love 0, Yatooma 0.
His margins grew every cycle. That is what a winner’s trajectory looks like.
He’s the Nonpartisan Professional Michigan Voters Are Looking For
After eight years of Benson, voters don’t want another ideologue in this office — from either party. They want competence, transparency, and someone who treats election administration as a public trust, not a political weapon.
Forlini is that candidate. He has taken real, concrete steps to improve election security in Macomb County — not with press conferences and conspiracy theories, but with actual operational improvements:
Implemented watermarked ballot paper
Introduced hash validations on tabulators to verify software integrity after certification
Deployed encrypted USBs to create digital copies of ballots for the first time
Expanded training for local clerks and election workers
And here’s a detail I think speaks volumes: when activists demanded that elections be hand-counted instead of machine-tabulated, Forlini invited them to come in and count side-by-side with a tabulator so everyone could compare the results. They didn’t show up.
That is the posture of a serious administrator who deals in facts, not fear. That is what wins over the 40% of Michigan voters who are independents. And that is what we need at the top of our ticket.
Clean Record. No Surprises.
Forlini has run six successful campaigns over 20+ years in public life. Democrats have thrown oppo at him before — in 2010 they attacked him over tennis balls at the township recreation department, and by the end of the day the liberal group behind it was conceding they had no proof of any wrongdoing. He still won.
Forlini is a professional with integrity. There are no skeletons in this closet.
The Case Against Amanda Love
She Has Virtually No Relevant Experience
Love’s campaign describes her as a “public policy professional” and “seasoned campaign professional” who worked in the Secretary of State’s office, the Attorney General’s office, and the legislative caucus. Those are candidate-submitted claims. The public record does not show she held a senior management role in any of those offices. Multiple insiders have told me her Secretary of State experience was limited to serving as a driver for former SoS Terri Lynn Land.
Her only verified elected office is a seat on the Clarkston Community Schools Board of Education, won in 2022 with 9,545 votes in a nonpartisan local election. That is one seat on a school board in a suburban district — not preparation for managing a statewide department with roughly 1,500 employees and dozens of branch offices.
Votebeat reported that Love agreed to an interview about her candidacy and then didn’t follow through. That fits a pattern: a candidate who avoids scrutiny because the details don’t hold up.
Her Public Statements Would Be Weaponized
At the District 11 candidate forum, Love doubled down on discredited claims about election tabulators. She even started a truly baseless conspiracy theory that Forlini would use tabulators at the state convention to steal the election. It’s a ridiculous claim—the tabulators to be used do not even come from his office. Despite that, Monica Yatooma and disgraced former 3rd party US Senate candidate Mark Forton—who helped give us Debbie Stabenow*—have both amplified this mud-slinging conspiracy theory.
These are the kind of antics that are truly toxic to the vast majority of Michigan voters. The Democratic nominee and Michigan media will use these statements and behaviors to define her candidacy. If we nominate her, we give the mainstream media all the red meat they need to attack our entire ticket.
The whole point of this race is to present a contrast to Benson’s partisanship. A nominee who sounds like the mirror image from the right defeats the entire purpose.
Personal Conduct: A Ticking Time Bomb for the Whole Ticket
Love’s own biological sister, Adora Orlovsky, has gone public with a video campaign alleging that Love:
Left her husband and five children to pursue an affair with a political campaign figure
Later retracted her divorce filing to maintain a “family values” image for her SoS campaign
Filed false felony abuse allegations against family members in retaliation for a welfare check on her children
The sheriff’s department dismissed the allegations: “No victim, no crime”
Civil and legal proceedings are underway. Detroit Metro Times and MIRS have already reported on it. Read the stories now to get a taste of what we’ll see continuously if Love becomes the nominee.
If Love is the nominee and court proceedings produce new developments during the campaign, the resulting coverage won’t stay on her. It will splash onto every Republican on the ticket. Every candidate for state house and state senate will be asked about it. This is not a theoretical risk — it is an active legal proceeding on a timetable we don’t control.
The Case Against Monica Yatooma
She Has Never Won an Election
Yatooma’s only run for elected office was the 2022 Republican primary for Oakland County Commissioner, District 12. She received 3,707 votes (40%) and lost to the incumbent by 20 points.
She has never won an election of any kind. Not a general. Not a primary. Not a school board. Nothing.
We’re going to nominate her for a statewide race?
Her Résumé Doesn’t Hold Up to Scrutiny
Yatooma’s campaign presents her as an experienced business executive. On a Michigan radio show, she described herself as “the CEO of a biohazardous medical waste management company” who manages “a lot of employees” and “several hundred clients.” Her Michigan GOP bio references “extensive experience working in highly regulated environments” without naming any specific company or role.
So we looked into it.
The company is Metro Detroit Medical Waste, Inc., incorporated in Michigan in November 2012. State corporate records list her husband, Randy Yatooma, as the President and registered agent — not Monica. ZoomInfo, a professional database, lists Monica’s title as “Deputy Chief Executive Officer” — not CEO, not founder. The Detroit Free Press and CBS Detroit both described her as the “deputy CEO” of a medical waste company, not the CEO.
Yet on the radio, she called herself “the CEO.”
Her campaign website and Michigan GOP bio contain no verifiable specifics about the size of this operation — no employee count, no revenue figures, no client list. She claims to “manage a lot of employees” and “several hundred clients,” but there is no public documentation to support that.
We went to the address listed for Metro Detroit Medical Waste — 42705 Grand River Avenue in Novi — to see for ourselves. There was no office for Metro Detroit Medical Waste in the building.
This raises an obvious question: if the centerpiece of your management experience doesn’t check out, what else has been fudged?
To be clear, Yatooma may well be involved in a real business. I texted her to ask if I had the wrong address. We had significant back and forth where she evaded and four times refused to answer to my question, “how many employees do you have?” I tried to be fair and polite, just seeking to understand where her business is located and what is the extent of her management experience. She ended the conversation by accusing me of “attacking” her and sent me a new picture of the building directory with her husband’s business’ name on it. She said the board had been “glitching.”
Her husband apparently owns the building.
Her behavior begs the question: If she is so evasive about something so basic as her management experience and the size of her husband’s business, how can we trust her to honestly administer elections?
There is a clear gap between how she describes her role on the campaign trail and what the public record actually shows — and it follows the same pattern as her campaign bio, which is heavy on vague language about “leadership” and “regulated environments” but light on anything a voter or journalist can verify.
The Secretary of State’s office manages roughly 1,500 employees and dozens of branch offices across the state. Delegates should ask: What is the actual, verifiable management experience that qualifies this candidate to run a department of that size? Because the public record doesn’t answer that question.
I sent Yatooma a text message to ask if the business has relocated and she did not respond.
Her Public Statements Would Repulse the Voters We Need
Yatooma’s social media record includes posts promoting claims that the CIA outsourced election-rigging software through Smartmatic to overthrow governments, “including here in the United States,” citing a “Venezuelan military intelligence whistleblower.” She amplified claims that Dar Leaf and Sidney Powell were “vindicated.” She called the 2020 election a “mess” that needs to be “fixed.”
When I asked her on X how promoting deceitful propaganda would help her candidacy she immediately blocked me.
I don’t need to tell you how the Democratic nominee and the media will use this. They will plaster it on every screen in the state. And the 40% of Michigan voters who are independents — the voters who will decide this race in November — will run the other direction.
Again: the whole point of this race is to present a credible, professional contrast to Benson. A nominee who posts Venezuelan election conspiracies on social media is the opposite of that contrast.
Narrow Financial Base
Campaign finance reports show that the overwhelming majority of Yatooma’s contributions come from the Oakland County Chaldean community. While that is an important community to Michigan Republicans, it represents a very small portion of the state’s donors and voters.
Only 1-2% of her contributions have come from outside the Chaldean community. A statewide race across 83 counties requires broad fundraising and broad support. Without a statewide donor base, she cannot build the kind of campaign needed to compete in November.
Remember What Happened Last Time
I shouldn’t have to spell this out, but I will.
Last time around, delegates nominated a Secretary of State candidate who excited the delegates but couldn’t compete in a general election. That nominee lost by over 600,000 votes — a 14-point margin. She never conceded. On the campaign trail, she ignored President Trump’s coaching and requests and her behavior helped tank the entire Republican ticket. In large part because of her poorly run campaign, in 2022, Democrats swept every statewide office and both legislative chambers for the first time since 1983.
Love and Yatooma carry the same risks: thin résumés, statements that would repulse general-election voters, and personal or political baggage that would be weaponized against the entire Republican ticket.
We cannot afford to make the same mistake twice.
The Bottom Line
We’re hiring someone to run Michigan’s elections, its branch offices, and a department of 1,500 people — and there’s no primary safety net. Our choice goes straight to the ballot.
Anthony Forlini has 20+ years of public service across three offices. He has won six general elections. He has beaten three Democratic incumbents. He administers elections right now for one of Michigan’s largest counties. He has a clean record. He projects the competence and professionalism that will appeal to the independents who are desperate for an alternative to Benson’s partisanship.
Amanda Love has one school board race, no verified management experience, and active litigation that will become the story of the campaign. Monica Yatooma has never won any election, lost her only small local race by 20 points, and has a social media record that would be weaponized to paint the entire Republican ticket as conspiracy-driven.
Remember the moral from part one: our number one goal is to WIN IN NOVEMBER. Forlini wins this race. Love and Yatooma lose it — and potentially drag the rest of the ticket down with them.
Support Anthony Forlini at the endorsement convention.
Convention Tool
I’ve created the below dossier to share the facts behind the case for Forlini for Secretary of State. Share this with any delegates you know.
NOTE: I have not been asked or compensated by Anthony Forlini or his campaign to produce this report in any way. My interest is purely in our party winning in November and taking back this state from the Democrats. I extend an open invitation to Amanda Love and Monica Yatooma to come on my show to discuss their qualifications.