Election deniers: A resounding defeat
“The stakes could not have been higher,” said Charlotte Alter in Time. In last week’s midterms, a host of Republican candidates who trumpeted Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen were seeking offices that would have put them in a position to oversee elections—and “sow chaos”—in swing states in 2024. But nearly all of them lost. Losers included Mark Finchem, a candidate for Arizona secretary of state who marched at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and said it was “fantasy” that Biden had won Arizona in 2020. In Nevada, MAGA conspiracy theorist
Jim Marchant, who claimed state election winners were chosen by a “deep-state cabal,” lost his secretary of state race to Democrat Cisco Aguilar. All told, according to the nonpartisan group States United Action, “94 election deniers ran for offices that oversee elections and only 14 won.”
Election deniers also lost big in gubernatorial races, said Jeremy Stahl in Slate. In Wisconsin, Republican Tim Michels, who vowed that if he won Republicans would “never lose another election in Wisconsin,” lost to Democrat Tony Evers; in Arizona and Pennsylvania, voters balked at giving Trump-backed deniers Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano “power over the state’s future elections.” It turns out that “securing democracy did resonate with voters.” That means a controversial and “risky strategy” by Democrats paid off, said Laura Washington in the Chicago Tribune. In 13 state races, Dems spent more than $36 million to promote election-denying MAGA candidates over more moderate Republicans, betting they’d lose in November. Six won their primaries, and last week “all six lost.”
Election deniers “are down but not yet out,” said Bill Lueders in The Bulwark. At least 150 won or were projected to win House races, including two who marched on the Capitol on Jan. 6. Election deniers J.D. Vance and Rand Paul won Senate races in Ohio and Kentucky, while Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who ran ads saying “blue state liberals stole the election” from Trump, coasted to re-election. Still, there are signs “the hornet of election denialism just might be losing his sting,” said Austin Sarat and Dennis Aftergut in The
Hill. Lake, who called her narrow loss “BS,” may yet prove to be a prominent exception, but it’s “remarkable” that nearly all the Republican losers have yet to cry fraud. Their concession speeches were “the sounds of democracy,” and it was “good to hear them.”