At least five Republican primary winners on the battlefield won by Joe Biden have embraced Donald Trump’s unfounded claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Many took action to try to reverse the 2020 election results, when Trump lost his states, and if elected in November, he may have Power To block or delay the authentication of election results in their states in the 2024 presidential election.
Here are some candidates to watch:
Carrie Lake – Candidate for Governor of Arizona
Former Trump-backed TV news anchor Kari Lake currently maintains a narrow lead over her rival Karin Taylor Robson, an attorney backed by former Vice President Mike Pence and the state’s current governor, Doug Ducey, though the race has yet to be called. It is one of at least three primary showings so far this year between the former president’s favorite candidates and his vice president.
In a june debate, Lake called the 2020 election “more than unfair” and reiterated the false claim that President Joe Biden “lost the election and should not be in the White House.” In the same debate, Lake told his opponents to raise their hands if they thought the election had been “stolen”. Robson replied, “I won’t play your – your stunt.”
The last year, Lake said that if she were the governor of Arizona in 2020, she would not attest to Biden’s victory in the state. Biden wins Arizona by 10,457 votesand a controversial Audit and hand recounting of ballot papers The state’s most populous county actually extended Mr Biden’s lead by a few hundred votes.
Until Tuesday’s primary, Lake continued to doubt the election process. “We’re already finding something to be stolen, but you guys know I’m a fighter, right?” He told a conservative group At the end of July. After her election night remarks late Tuesday, while the ballots were being counted, Lake repeatedly predicted she would win as long as “all legal” ballots were counted.
Mark Finchem – nominee for Arizona Secretary of State
Arizona State House Rep. Mark Finchem Arizona won the GOP primary for Secretary of State, the state’s top election official. The position was left open by Democrat Katie Hobbs, who is running for governor. A year after Mr Biden took office, Finchem was still trying to reverse the results.
In February he presented a resolution To certify the 2020 election results in Maricopa, Pima and Yuma counties. Mr Biden won the state’s most populous counties, Maricopa and Pima County, by more than 142,000 votes, while Trump won Yuma by more than 4,000 votes.
“That there is no procedure under current law for the Arizona Legislature to ‘decertify’ an election does not mean that the Legislature cannot provide a remedy for outcome-determiner fraud and illegality in the conduct of the election, ‘ Finchem wrote in the resolution. “The 2020 general election is incredibly compromised, and it is impossible to name a clear winner of the contest.”
FinChem attended Trump’s “Stop the Steel” rally on January 6 and was near the Capitol as rioters stormed the building, according to Arizona Mirror,
Last October, Finchem asked for decertification About Mr Biden’s victory during an appearance at a Trump rally in Iowa. they also supported Maricopa County AuditA lengthy hand count of ballots by private contractors, who eventually found that Mr Biden had won the county by nearly 45,000 votes.
Finchem is also a member of the Far Right. swearers who helped orderly The “#StopTheSteal” movement in Arizona. He was endorsed by Trump in September 2021.
Blake Masters – Nominated for US Senator from Arizona
Venture capitalist and former executive of the investment firm of billionaire Peter Thiel defeated Arizona Attorney General Mark Branovich and Army veteran Jim Laman in the race for the Republican nomination for the US Senate. Trump endorsed Masters in June.
one in campaign advertising Released in November, Masters said, “I think Trump won in 2020,” adding that “the election was really messed up.” It’s a sentiment that resonates Masters website, There he wrote that the 2020 election was “a rotten mess” and added “if we had a free and fair election, President Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office today.”
Like other Republicans who have spread claims of Trump’s stolen election, Masters has expressed skepticism. $400 million grant To state and local election officials by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. He also calls for the need for a photo ID, an end to drop boxes, and an “end indiscriminate mass mailing of ballots”.
In 1991, Arizona passed a law allowing no-excuse mail ballots. State allows voters to stay In the list to receive mail ballots for each election, and according to politicsThree out of every four Arizona voters were on that permanent list.
Tudor Dixon, nominated for governor of Michigan
Conservative radio host and activist Dixon will be the Republican nominee to face Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who led the state during the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Biden beat trump by 154,188 votes in the Midwestern state, just under 3 points.
In 2016, Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes.
In a primary debate, Dixon raised his hand with the rest of the Republican gubernatorial field when asked whether there was enough fraud to affect the 2020 election results. In another debate he asked whether he believed Trump had legitimately won the state. He Answered, “Yes.”
Days after the November election in 2020, Dixon tweeted that the election had been plagiarized and that the Democrats had committed “sloppy and obvious” voter fraud, according to Bridge MichiganBut did not present any evidence to support his claim.
However, in an interview with “Fox News Sunday” last week, Dixon did not explicitly say that he thought the 2020 election had been stolen. Instead, he directed his criticism at Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
“We have to make sure our elections are secure and that what happened in 2020 doesn’t happen again,” he told Fox News, “We are demanding an election law of common sense.”
Christina Karamo – Michigan Secretary of State
Christina Karamo, a potential GOP candidate, was a poll watcher in 2020 who signed an affidavit claiming she witnessed voter fraud during vote counting in Detroit. they claim rejected, She signed a lawsuit to reverse Biden’s 154,188 vote victory in 2020 and called for a “forensic audit” of the election.
In Michigan, there is no primary for selecting a nominee for secretary of state; Instead the respective parties of the state vote for their preferred candidate. Karamo won a majority vote at the Michigan GOP party convention in April.
In December, Karamo tweeted That “corrupt politicians were trying to steal elections with the help of lying media, this is not going to happen.” Karamo gained a following after the 2020 election, when he claimed to have witnessed fraudulent activity where Detroit was counting absentee ballots and later testified before a state Senate committee. She made several cable news appearances to spread unfounded claims of widespread fraud and filed in the Supreme Court to intervene in a Texas case that sought to overturn the 2020 election.
One of Karamo’s central fraud claims was about a ballot that filled direct-ticket voting bubbles for Democrats and Republicans. She claimed that a worker wanted to count the ballot for Democrats and that an observer told the worker to “push it up.” Chris Thomas, Michigan’s longtime election director who was at the absentee vote counting facility in Detroit, told CBS News that “taking it forward” means the ballot will be registered as an overvote and for either party. will not count.
During the New Jersey gubernatorial election in November 2021, Karamo baseless Claimed That the ballots for Democrat incumbent Governor Phil Murphy appeared “magical.” “It might not make stuff up, but again you’re a “rebel” and a “big lie supporter” to point out the obvious,” he tweeted, Like DePerno, Karamo was endorsed by Michigan Republicans in April and is expected to become the formal candidate in August.
Eric Schmidt – nominated for US Senator from Missouri
Coming into primary day, Missouri Republican Eric Schmidt had gained national attention as “ERIC” in the race. former President Trump supported ‘ERIC’ for the Missouri US Senate seat, and Eric Schmidt, one of three “Eriks” who were campaigning, acknowledged Trump’s support and said he was “grateful” for it.
Schmidt has also accepted Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen, leading to a trial in 2020 with 17 other attorneys general.
On July 5, Schmidt released campaign advertising on Twitter in which he said that when he was the 43rd Attorney General of Missouri, he “stands with President Trump to prevent election fraud.”
John Gibbs – Nominated to Congress, Michigan’s 3rd District
Gibbs is a former Trump-era Housing and Urban Development official who won his primary challenge against Republican Rep. Peter Meijer, a moderate new congressman who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6 attacks.
during Debate with Meijer at the end of June, Gibbs claimed there were “inconsistencies” with the 2020 election results “that are mathematically improbable.” on your campaign websiteGibbs called for a “full forensic audit” of the 2020 election and wrote that an ID should be required to vote, ending the early voting period and adding that “mass mailing of ballots to every voter … Will be considered corrupt if used in any developing country.”
In 2020, Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson mailed ballot applications – not ballots – to every registered voter because of the pandemic. This year, Michigan voters applied to receive an absentee ballot, and State election officials said That more than half the votes in the primary were absentee ballots.
