ELECTION DENIERS LOSE RACES FOR KEY OFFICES
Battleground states spurn hopefuls who questioned ’20 vote
Voters in the six major battlegrounds where Donald Trump tried to reverse his defeat in 2020 rejected electiondenying candidates seeking to control their states’ election systems this year.
Candidates for secretary of state in Michigan, Arizona and Nevada who had echoed Trump’s false accusations lost their contests on Tuesday, with the latter race called Saturday night. A fourth candidate never made it out of his May primary in Georgia.
In Pennsylvania, one of the nation’s most prominent election deniers lost his bid for governor, a job that would have given him the power to appoint the secretary of state. And in Wisconsin, an election-denying contender’s loss in the governor’s race effectively blocked a move to put election administration under partisan control.
Trump-allied Republicans mounted a concerted push this year to win a range of state and federal offices, including the once obscure office of secretary of state, which in many instances is a state’s top election official.
Some pledged to “decertify” the 2020 results, although election law experts said that is not possible. Others promised to decommission electronic voting machines, require handcounting of ballots or block all mail voting.
Their platforms were rooted in Trump’s disproved claims that the 2020 race was rigged, and their bids for public office raised grave concerns about whether the popular will could be subverted, and free and fair elections undermined, in 2024 and beyond.
Election administrators and voting rights advocates said the rebuke of election deniers seeking state-level office was a refreshing course correction by U.S. voters, whose choice of more seasoned and less extreme candidates ref lected a desire for stability and a belief that the nation’s elections are in fact largely secure.
“This was a vote for normalcy,” said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who prevailed against a Democratic opponent Tuesday after defeating U.S. Rep. Jody Hice in the spring primary. Hice, who was endorsed by Trump, spent the campaign attacking Raffensperger for refusing to block Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Georgia.
Voters “were looking for and rewarded character,” Raffensperger said. “They were looking for people who could get the job done. They rewarded competence.”
Elsewhere, the losers included Doug Mastriano for governor in Pennsylvania, as well as three candidates for secretary of state — Mark Finchem of Arizona, Jim Marchant in Nevada and Kristina Karamo of Michigan — all of whom sought to overturn the 2020 result. Losing gubernatorial contender Tim Michels in Wisconsin would have had the power to push a Republican plan to eliminate the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections
Commission and transfer election administration to the secretary of state or another partisan office.
Of the five who were defeated in the general election, only Michels, who lost to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, had conceded as of Saturday afternoon. But most of the others have, so far, stopped short of claiming that fraud had tainted their races. Their muted reaction to Tuesday’s outcomes suggested that attacking the integrity of American elections is not a winning formula, at least for state office, voting rights advocates said.
Although many candidates denying the outcome of the 2020 vote came up short in their bids for state office, the U.S. House was a different matter. At least 150 election deniers were projected to win their House races as of Saturday — an increase over the 139 Republicans who voted against the electoral college count following the assault on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021.
Overall, more than 170 election deniers on the ballot for the U.S. House, Senate and key statewide offices were projected to win their elections as of Saturday, according to a Washington Post analysis.
The Post identified candidates as election deniers if they questioned Biden’s victory, opposed the counting of Biden’s Electoral College votes, expressed support for a partisan post-election ballot review, signed onto a lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2020 result or attended or expressed support for the rally on the day of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.