The issue is at the center of high-profile races in Arizona and Michigan — two of the president’s key battlegrounds — weeks after Republican voters elsewhere picked supporters of former President Donald Trump’s lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election as candidates for several posts, which could enable them to manage the electoral machinery of key states in 2024.
Arizona, in particular, was the epicenter of Trump’s election denial. Once a Republican stronghold, the state has grown into one of the most competitive in the nation, with Democrats winning the presidential race and both Senate seats there in recent years. That policy shift was met with a sham, partisan review of the 2020 election results ordered by the GOP-led state Senate last year.
Here’s a look at the conscientious objectors on the ballot in Tuesday’s major races in the Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington state primaries:
The GOP could be ready to nominate a statewide ticket for Trump-backed election deniers on Tuesday.
In the race to replace Republican governor Doug Ducey with a limited term, Trump-backed former television journalist Kari Lake has built her campaign on lies about voter fraud. she referred to the refusal of her leading rival, Ducey-backed Karrin Taylor Robson, to indulge in those lies as “disqualifying.” A state legislature who was in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021 and falsely claimed Trump won the 2020 election has “pulled out all the stops” to cheat 2020 but has hinted that the 2022 midterms will not be fair . Masters faces other Republicans who opposed the 2020 election result, including businessman Jim Lamon, who is touting his efforts to fund the fake review of Maricopa County’s 2020 results. Another candidate, Attorney General Mark Brnovich, sent a letter claiming to have uncovered electoral fraud without providing details of fraud in the conduct of the elections. Trump’s nominee for Attorney General Abraham Hamadeh said He would “take seriously the fraud in our 2020 election and hold accountable those who have undermined our republic.”
Michigan
Trump on Friday endorsed Tudor Dixon in the wide-open Republican primary to run against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is seeking her second term. Dixon, a conservative commentator, has falsely claimed Trump won the 2020 election. She is also supported by Michigan’s GOP establishment, including former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ family, the state Chamber of Commerce and Michigan Right to Life. This GOP gubernatorial primary also features several other refusers. One candidate, Ryan Kelley, was in Washington on January 6, 2021 and has pleaded not guilty to four misdemeanor charges arising from allegations of his involvement in the US Capitol riots. Retired pastor Ralph Rebandt said he was “convinced we would uncover fraud” in the 2020 election with a “full forensic examination.” And chiropractor Garrett Soldano has touted a film promoting an unproven conspiracy theory about the 2020 election.
In the 3rd congressional district in Grand Rapids, Rep. Peter Meijer — one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Capitol riot — meets a Trump-backed challenger in John Gibbs.
Gibbs wholeheartedly embraced Trump’s election lies. He falsely claimed in a debate with Meijer that the results leading to Biden’s win in 2020 were “simply mathematically impossible” and said there were “anomalies in them, to put it very lightly”.
Democrats have sought to bolster Gibbs – who they believe would be easier to beat in November’s general election – with ads portraying him as a Trump-aligned conservative.
Michigan Republicans are also expected to select Trump-backed abstainers in the races for secretary of state and attorney general. At an April convention, the state GOP endorsed Kristina Karamo, an educator and right-wing commentator who claimed to have witnessed irregularities in the 2020 election, as Secretary of State, and Matthew DePerno, who was counsel in a case involving the results of 2020, for the Attorney General. But those races aren’t on Tuesday’s main election; Instead, Republicans will officially make their choice at a convention in August.
Missouri
Missouri’s Republican primary replacing retired Senator Roy Blunt offers a field full of candidates who embraced Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s campaign has run ads promoting his role in a lawsuit aimed at overturning Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results. Former Gov. Eric Greitens, who is attempting a political comeback after stepping down in 2018 amid a sex scandal and allegations of campaign misconduct, has spread conspiracy theories about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose nonprofit gives millions of dollars in grants to local governments to manage the elections 2020 has granted. Greitens’ campaign held a screening of a film that promoted this conspiracy theory. He has also urged Arizona to decertify its 2020 election results, citing a sham, partisan review conducted last year. And he has called for nationwide election tests. St. Louis attorney Mark McCloskey has falsely claimed President Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election. Rep. Vicky Hartzler said “we’ll never know” who won 2020.
Hartzler and Rep. Billy Long, another Senate candidate, both voted against confirming Biden’s January 2021 election victory.
Washington
Two more of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump face key challengers backed by the former president and have embraced his lies about the 2020 election.
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler faces a key challenge from Trump-backed Joe Kent, who claimed that “rampant voter fraud” took place in 2020 in an ad his campaign ran on Facebook. Rep. Dan Newhouse faces Loren Culp, the Republican who lost Washington’s 2020 gubernatorial election and then filed a lawsuit against the state’s chief election commissioner over widespread fraud. Culp’s attorney then withdrew the lawsuit after Washington’s attorney general said he would ask a judge to impose sanctions on the “factually baseless” allegations.
Kansas
Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, a Republican who oversaw the state’s 2020 election, has defended the legitimacy of the state’s election process. However, he faces a primary challenger, former Johnson County Commissioner Mike Brown, who has built his campaign on raising doubts about the integrity of the election and blaming Schwab for local oversight problems. “The 2020 election still makes me question the integrity and accuracy of our election process,” Brown said in a campaign video.