# Matt DePerno Michigan attorney and 2022 Republican nominee for Attorney General who lost to [[Dana Nessel]] by 8 points. He filed a candidate committee for the 2026 Attorney General race in **August 2025**, while still under felony charges over a scheme to gain unauthorized access to voting machines after the 2020 election — a case rooted in [[Election Denialism]]. As of January 2026 that criminal case was still being delayed. When the special prosecutor brought those charges in August 2023, he declined to charge the technical experts named in the original petition, including [[Doug Logan]] of [[Cyber Ninjas]] and Ben Cotton of [[CyFIR]], saying they had been "deceived" by some of the defendants. The Arizona Mirror linked DePerno to two groups (the Election Integrity Fund and Legal Defense Fund for the American Republic) that together gave $280,000 to Arizona's [[2021 Maricopa County Presidential Ballot Audit]]. **He is not the 2026 nominee.** Michigan nominates Attorney General by **party convention, not primary**, and the Republican nomination went to Eaton County prosecutor Doug Lloyd, who took 63% of delegates at the March 28, 2026 endorsement convention over Kevin Kijewski and was formally nominated on August 22. Michigan outlets framed that convention as the party consciously moving on from the DePerno–Karamo era. See [[2026 Key State Races Hub]]. > [!warning] Unresolved — how his 2026 candidacy ended is undocumented > DePerno filed a committee in August 2025 and does not appear anywhere in the March 2026 convention field: not as a contender, not as a loser, and no withdrawal was reported in any source located. The gap between those two facts is an open research item, not a conclusion. > > Note: the widely-surfacing story "Karamo tossed out, DePerno bows out of chaotic Michigan GOP convention" is from **August 2024** and concerns his state Supreme Court bid, not this race.