More than 100 Republican primary winners support Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
At least 108 primary victors in races across several states have won after repeating claims originated by Trump that electoral fraudsters denied his winning the 2020 election after rigging the race in favor of Joe Biden, according to new analysis from the Washington Post.
Those who questioned the 2020 election results won primary races for seats in the House of Representatives, US Senate seats, state gubernatorial mansions, and other high-profile positions.
A large amount of primary winners also campaigned on improving electoral security, but they offered no evidence that current practices in that sector are compromised.
“These officeholders are so important,” said Joanna Lydgate, founder and CEO of States United Democracy Center, a nonprofit promoting free and fair elections, to the Post. “They are going to be the ones on whose backs our democracy survives or doesn’t.”
Excluding primaries from 7 June, eight US Senate candidates, 86 candidates for the House of Representatives, five gubernatorial candidates, four candidates for state attorney general and one for secretary of state have all won while promoting Trump’s 2020 election denialism.
Among primary winners who have publicly questioned the results of the 2020 election, many either participated in the January 6 attack on the Capitol or have attempted to reframe that day’s events.
JR Majewski, the GOP primary winner for the Ohio congressional district, attended the US Capitol riots and is a proponent of the QAnon baseless internet conspiracy theory, which outlandishly posits that Trump is secretly locked in combat with a cabal of leftist pedophiles.
He has also claimed that the 2020 election was fraudulent and has called for Republican states to secede from the US.
In Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race, primary winner Doug Mastriano was also at the US Capitol on January 6 and helped bus in supporters. Mastriano has suggested that state legislators should appoint their own electors – ignoring the results of a democratic vote – and hired 2020 election denier Jenna Ellis as apart of his campaign.
Besides newcomers, incumbents who previously voted to overturn the 2020 election results also won their primaries, Politico reported.
In California, Representative Doug LaMalfa of California’s first district and minority leader Kevin McCarthy both finished atop their primary races.
Similarly, Representative Trent Kelly of Mississippi and Representative Matt Rosendale of Montana, who both voted to overturn the 2020 electoral results, had successful primaries, winning with an overwhelming majority of the vote.
The primary results demonstrate a startling trend of mainstream Republican voters embracing election denialism and other ideals once thought to be on the fringes of political discourse.
Propagation of the false 2020 election fraud claims comes as the House continues investigating the Capitol insurrection, with evidence emerging that Trump was informed via top aides that the election fraud theories were “baseless”.
