GOP’s election official races have become ’20 denial battleground

PHOENIX — An Arizona lawmaker endorsed by former President Donald Trump who attended the Jan. 6, 2021, rally that preceded the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol and another lawmaker who also believes the 2020 presidential election results should be overturned are among four Republicans vying for the top elections post in the presidential battleground.

It’s a trend seen in several Republican primaries this year that has led to mixed results for those who peddle conspiracy theories and promote the falsehood that widespread fraud led to Trump’s defeat. Tuesday’s primary elections feature similar candidates in Kansas and Washington state.

In Kansas, voters will choose between a challenger who questions the 2020 presidential results and the incumbent Republican who believes the election was secure in his state. Washington state’s open primary also has a candidate who backs Trump’s unsupported claims, although that’s not the toughest challenge the Democratic incumbent faces.

So far this year, Republican primary voters have split on whether to put election skeptics on the November ballot.

In June, Nevada voters selected former state lawmaker Jim Marchant, who has been repeating the false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, to face the Democrat in an open race for secretary of state. But in Colorado, GOP voters rejected a local election clerk who has been appearing with Trump allies promoting conspiracies about voting machines and instead chose a Republican who vowed to keep politics out of elections.

And Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who rejected Trump’s plea to “find” enough votes for him to win the state, easily survived a primary challenge to advance in that state’s May primary.

Arizona’s secretary of state race is the most eye-catching and consequential of Tuesday’s primary battles, in part because of Republican state Rep. Mark Finchem.

The retired Michigan police officer and current Arizona House member was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and contends Trump lost Arizona because of rampant fraud. He backed a controversial and much-criticized state Senate “audit” of the 2020 election results in the state’s most populous county and this year tried to get the Republican-controlled Legislature to notify Congress that Arizona wanted to decertify Joe Biden’s election win.

In Kansas, Secretary of State Scott Schwab also is facing a challenge from his right in the state’s GOP primary.

Schwab has defended the use of ballot drop boxes, which Trump and other Republicans say are prone to misuse, even though there is no widespread evidence of that. He has dismissed baseless theories about fraud, at least as a possibility in Kansas elections.

Schwab’s primary opponent is Mike Brown has made doubts about the security of Kansas elections central to his campaign. He’s promised to ban ballot drop boxes and said he will use the secretary of state’s office to pursue election fraud cases, rather than taking Schwab’s approach of working through prosecutors.