Comment Democrat Cisco Aguilar is expected to win the race for Nevada secretary of state, beating a Republican candidate, Jim Marchant, who has sought to oversee Nevada’s elections while unfoundedly denying results from 2020. It was the latest defeat for GOP candidates who campaigned on former President Donald Trump’s false insistence that the 2020 election was stolen and would wield power over the 2024 ballot. Marchant, who was endorsed by Trump, was in close race to oversee voting in a 2024 battleground state, where the current secretary of state — a Republican — has defended the integrity of the voting process amid an onslaught of baseless claims. Aguilar, who chairs a school board in North Las Vegas, campaigned to make voting more accessible and said it would “protect our democracy.” Marchant was one of several candidates across the country who were nominated for secretary of state this year. In Michigan, GOP candidate Christina Karamo — who promoted bogus claims about the 2020 election — lost by 14 points. In Arizona, Republican state lawmaker Mark Finchem — who wanted to ratify the 2020 ballot and tried to ban voting machines — on Friday was projected to lose to Democrat Adrian Fontes. Track which 2020 election naysayers are winning, losing in the midterms Many other candidates who took on Trump’s false election claims have prevailed. A majority of GOP candidates for the House, Senate and key statewide offices this year — 291 in all — have declined or disputed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, the Washington Post found. As of Friday, most of them were predicted to win. Strategists in both parties believed that a good year for Republicans could propel even fringe candidates like Marchant to victory. But Republican hopes for a red wave have not come to fruition as Democrats grow increasingly optimistic about the overall outcome of the midterms.
