Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election brought the US to the brink of a democratic crisis. Refusing to concede his loss to Joe Biden, he attempted to use every lever available to try and throw out the results of the election, pressuring state lawmakers, Congress and the courts to declare him the winner.
Those efforts didn’t succeed. But Trump nonetheless created a new poison that seeped deep in the Republican party – a belief that the results of US elections cannot be trusted. The belief quickly became Republican orthodoxy: it was embraced by Republican officeholders across the country as well as local activists who began to bombard and harass local election officials, forcing many of them to retire. The January 6 attack on the US Capitol – in which thousands stormed the building, and five people died as a result – was the starkest reminder of the potential violent consequences of this rhetoric.
In 2022, several Republicans who embraced election denialism lost their races to be the top election official in their state. But at the same time, many Republicans who unabashedly embraced the idea and aided Trump’s efforts to overturn the election were re-elected and, in some cases, elevated to higher office.
