These Are The 2020 Election Naysayers Who Won The House And Senate Races

Comment Dozens of House, Senate and statewide candidates who have echoed former President Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 race was rigged are projected to win Tuesday’s elections, with dozens more races still to be counted. The vast majority of those winning candidates claimed House seats, but candidates who declined or challenged the legitimacy of the 2020 vote also won statewide races late Tuesday night. Their success came less than two years after Trump called in a mob that stormed the US Capitol on the premise that it had been cheated out of victory. Among the more than 150 election naysayers predicted to have won by midnight: Florida Gov. Ron DeSandis, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Rep. Greg Pence (Ind.), brother of former Vice President Mike Pence. But some of the election’s most outspoken naysayers lost races that had been considered winnable for Republicans when the year began, including Doug Mastriano, who lost his bid for governor of Pennsylvania. Candidates who disputed or refused to accept President Biden’s victory — 51 percent of the 569 GOP candidates analyzed by the Washington Post, 291 in all — ran in every region of the country and nearly every state. Washington Post senior video editor JM Rieger analyzed the views of the majority of Republicans hoping to claim victory on November 8. (Video: The Washington Post) Most of the winners who refused the election campaigned on a range of issues, notably inflation, abortion and crime. The voters who supported them didn’t necessarily do so because of their attitudes about 2020. But the candidates’ views on election integrity could have lasting consequences for US democracy. The winners of the nominations for governor, secretary of state and attorney general will assume positions with significant power to oversee American elections. Unofficial projections on Tuesday showed the election naysayers would amount to a sizable majority in the Republican-dominated House, with huge influence in choosing the country’s next speaker if Republicans win control of the chamber. The speaker will in turn preside over the House in 2024, when the presidential vote could be contested again. Track which election naysayers are winning and losing in the midterms Tuesday’s result reflected the difficult political calculus of electoral denial within the GOP. It was a virtual requirement for many Republican candidates seeking their party’s nomination, given the importance of Trump’s endorsement. Prominent Republicans who defied the former president, notably Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), were defeated by internal party challenges. However, it was not clear that the claim that the 2020 election was rigged benefited the candidates in a tight general election. Among the winners who declined Tuesday’s election was Jen A. Kiggans, a Republican from Virginia who defeated Rep. Elaine Luria — a member, like Cheney, of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol . One of Luria’s central arguments to voters this fall was the need to combat the anti-democratic forces that fueled the violence that day. Luria stuck with that theme in her concession speech on Tuesday. When she mentioned her opponent and supporters booing, she said: “No, please don’t boo. The success of this region depends on its success.” Election deniers were also predicted to lose some competitive races. JR Majewski, an Ohio House candidate who attended the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally and was trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, was among those who went down in defeat. Don Bolduc of New Hampshire lost to incumbent U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan after a standoff between declaring the 2020 election rigged and legitimate. Mastriano narrowly lost to Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, despite the state being one of the most politically contentious in the nation. Among the roughly 6 in 10 Pennsylvania voters who saw the 2020 election as legitimate, more than 8 in 10 voted for Shapiro, exit polls showed. Of the roughly one-third of voters who thought it was a fraud, about 9 in 10 supported Mastriano. The Post identified candidates as election deniers if they directly challenged Biden’s victory, objected to the counting of Biden’s electoral college votes, expressed support for a partisan recount of post-election ballots, signed lawsuits seeking to overturn the 2020 result, or attended or expressed support for the Stop the Steal rally in Washington that preceded the riot on Capitol Hill; The majority of GOP candidates are in denial or questioning the results of the 2020 election Tuesday’s election came as Americans are increasingly worried about US democracy, with about 7 in 10 voters saying American democracy is “a lot” or “somewhat” threatened, according to early exit polling conducted by Edison Research . At the same time, voters expressed greater confidence that elections in their state would be conducted fairly and accurately. About 8 in 10 voters said they were very or somewhat confident that elections in their state would be fair and accurate. Jacque Rose, a registered Republican and “predominantly Republican” voter from Boise, Idaho, said in an interview Tuesday that she sometimes splits her ticket. The retiree joined a steady stream of voters in a short line at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Boise, explaining that her vote was against extremism. “I’m scared to death of what some of these right-wingers are doing to us,” he said. “And I’m red and scared.” Edward B. Foley, an election law scholar at Ohio State University, said the success of so many vote-denials is troubling, but much uncertainty remains about how those officials will use their power. He noted that some election naysayers on the ballot this year have wavered, which leaves it unclear how they would act once they take office. Foley also suggested that the naysayers’ acceptance of their victories could, in some ways, boost public confidence in their states’ elections. “The whole goal is for valid victories to be certified as valid and for none of this perversion to prevail,” he said. “I don’t want to water it down unduly. We are in treacherous waters. It will be harder the more naysayers are in power. But it is not inevitable that the ship will sink.” Ever since Donald Trump first suggested that the 2020 election might be stolen, Republicans have embraced the claim. Here’s how it turned out to be a litmus test for the party. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post) Hundreds of election officials across the country sought to dispel concerns about election security as Tuesday approached — and some of them, including several on the ballot, continued that work as voting began. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) was in a competitive race Tuesday against election denier Kristina Karamo, who claimed without evidence that she witnessed fraud as a poll watcher in Detroit in 2020. Benson spent much of Tuesday fighting false allegations of wrongdoing — including Trump’s. “There are always things that could be leveraged that really have no impact on the election process itself and in any other situation would be minor,” Benson said. “I think voters just have to see this for what it is — a political strategy that some have chosen to pursue at the expense of who we are as Americans and our democracy.” Some of the most prominent re-electionists on the ballot this year included people seeking state-level office who would have broad power to influence the administration and possibly the outcome of future elections: Kari Lake for governor of Arizona, Jim Marchant for secretary of state of Nevada, and Matthew DePerno for Michigan Attorney General. All have offered unqualified support for Trump’s false claims of fraud in 2020. DePerno helped Trump try to overturn the result by spearheading baseless claims that Dominion Voting Systems machines in Michigan had shifted votes from Trump to Biden. Lake said her opponent, Democrat Katie Hobbs, should be jailed for certifying Biden’s victory in Arizona. Marchant has vowed to validate Biden’s 2020 victory in Nevada and wants to mandate statewide hand counts. No winners were predicted in these matches as of 1am on Wednesday. Among the winners predicted at the time was Eric Schmidt, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Missouri who will replace retiring incumbent Roy Blunt (R). Blunt had voted to certify Biden’s victory, citing court rulings that rejected Trump’s claims of fraud. Another is Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), who shared debunked claims about the 2020 outcome on talk radio. “How is it possible that in Pennsylvania there are 200,000 more votes on Election Day than there were [voters] on the electoral rolls?” asked. Some voters said concern about election integrity was a primary motivator in their choices this year. Chip Johnson, 65, who voted Tuesday in Madison, Miss., said he believes there has been voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. He stopped short of saying he thinks Trump won, but said: “I just think there’s a lot of fraudulent voting. ,” before addressing several issues that have been shot down, including the dead vote. “Even if it’s true or not, it raises the suspicion that things are not well,” he said. “It’s like the truth is no longer relevant. It’s like the truth is what I say it is.” Some of the most prominent election naysayers of the year won on Tuesday. Among them: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) — two close Trump allies who have repeatedly made false claims about the 2020 outcome. Those candidates have also attacked the House committee’s work investigating the Jan. 6 attack — and have vowed to throw out the committee’s subpoena for Trump’s testimony if Republicans regain…