Election Deniers Denied—Mostly

Voters repudiated many of Donald Trump’s favored 'Stop the Steal' candidates in state-level races.

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Michigan secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo speaks during a Save America rally on October 1, 2022 in Warren, Michigan. (Photo by Emily Elconin/Getty Images)

High-profile candidates parroting stolen-election claims had a down night Tuesday. Although some races remain too close to call, the trend extends to races for state-level positions responsible for administering fair elections.

The number of candidates running for secretary of state this year who made election denying a key feature—or at least cozied up to conspiracies—raised concerns among political scientists and democracy-focused organizations. “It’s important that the people overseeing democracy believe in that democracy,” David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, said Wednesday.

Voters apparently think so too. In secretary of state contests in swing states especially, voters largely rejected candidates denying the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. So far, Audrey Trujillo in New Mexico, Dominic Rapini in Connecticut, Kim Crockett in Minnesota, and Kristina Karamo in Michigan lost to incumbent Democrats. In Vermont, the election-denying Republican candidate lost a long-shot bid too.

The degrees to which each candidate sowed doubt about 2020 varied: Crocket called the election rigged, and Trujillo called it a coup. Karamo falsely claimed that Donald Trump won Michigan and testified during a state Senate hearing on fraud. Rapini formerly served as chairman of Fight Voter Fraud, a Wyoming-based organization that pushed conspiracies about the 2020 election. While running, he said at times that Joe Biden was “duly elected” but continued to campaign on disproven claims about the 2020 election. 

But Trujillo seems the most likely to repeat Trump’s playbook of contesting her own election. She refused to concede Wednesday, despite losing by 12 percent. 

As secretaries of state, they would have wielded significant power in administering their respective states’ election systems and in some would have played a role in certifying election results. 

Other contests in battleground states remained close: In Arizona, Democrat Adrian Fontes led Republican Mark Finchem 52 percent to 48 percent, with 67 percent of votes counted as of Wednesday night.

And in Nevada, Jim Marchant led Democrat Fracisco Aguilar 49-47 with 77 percent of the votes counted.

Stop the Stealers did triumph in some contests. Chuck Gray, who called Biden’s win “illegitimate” won an uncontested race in Wyoming. Diego Morales prevailed in Indiana. (Morales questioned the 2020 election results, at one point calling the election a scam, though he also said that Biden won the presidency legitimately.) In South Dakota, Monae Johnson—who repudiated the title of election denier but still raised some doubts about the election—won. And in Alabama Republican Wes Allen beat out a more fervent, Trump-endorsed election denier in the GOP primary, but was not exactly a believer in the legitimacy of Biden’s win himself: He supported a state-led motion for the Supreme Court to overturn Biden’s victory in key states.

Races for states’ attorneys general—who often must defend election results in court and in some states, play a role in certifying results—remained more mixed. Kris Kobach, who supported the Texas-led lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to overturn Biden’s win in some states, won narrowly over Democrat Chris Mann in Kansas. In Texas, GOP incumbent Ken Paxton won handily.

In Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin, Democrats pulled out wins. The Arizona contest between Democrat Kris Mayes and Republican Abraham Hamadeh—who called the election “corrupt”—was essentially tied Wednesday.

Some of the most prominent election deniers had a bad night in battleground gubernatorial races: Doug Mastriano lost in Pennsylvania, Tudor Dixon lost in Michigan, and in Wisconsin, Tim Michels lost to incumbent Gov. Tony Evers. Michels has been inconsistent in denying the election, at times appearing more moderate on the issue. But he said that Trump would “probably be president right now if we had election integrity” and in the primary suggested he would consider ways to decertify Biden’s win of the state. 

The gubernatorial contest in Arizona between Democrat Katie Hobbs and Republican Kari Lake, a prominent election denier, remains close. 

Ryan Burge, a political science professor at Eastern Illinois University, thinks fringe candidates may have done better if a so-called red wave would have materialized, but not when Republicans underperformed overall: “For a lot of voters the Stop the Steal thing does not make any sense to them. It’s like a fringe movement, seems conspiracy theory-ish. And they just want to move on beyond all that stuff. I think that’s what we’re seeing a lot of—a lot of moderate voters going, ‘I would vote for Republicans but not that Republican.’”

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Comments (16)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Connie

    Oh, I so hope Kari Lake loses.

    That woman is not an asset to the body politic.

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    1. Randall Briggs

      She's not an asset to the rest of the human race either.

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  2. MathewA

    This makes me so happy...

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    MattA

    It's also interesting to look at the total votes distribution along the election denial spectrum. In SD for example, John Thune got 15% more votes than SoS Monae Johnson and 12% more than Gov Kristi Noem. (That's different than the performance relative to their opponent, better because it counts people who declined to vote for a certain candidate, as I did in GA.)

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  4. Avatar photo
    David M

    Thanks Harvest, nice article.

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    BillAZ

    The "election integrity" issue is a bogus issue and always has been a manufactured load of horse manure. And it's dangerous to keep claiming election integrity is a problem. If some party or candidate can't win an election then perhaps they need to change thier message rather than accusing the election of being rigged.

    It's good that Stop the Steal candidates were dumped in so many contests but that some made it through is still concerning. How much arsenic in the coffee is too much come 2024?

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    Paul Britton

    "Ryan Burge . . . thinks fringe candidates may have done better if a so-called red wave would have materialized."

    I think it would be more accurate to say that a red wave might really have materialized if it hadn't been for all the fringe candidates.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Aylene Wright

    ‘I would vote for Republicans but not that Republican.’”

    There's recently been a widespread assumption among political pundits that no one thinks this way anymore, that the vast majority of people who follow politics are hardcore partisans who either Vote Blue No Matter Who or Vote Red Even If They're Dead (yes I just made that up), and therefore the only factor deciding elections is turnout. Or, if one is especially cynical, either voter fraud or voter suppression.

    But IMO there's an underlying cynicism and contempt for voters in that assumption, as just sheep who blindly swallow whatever the Really Smart Ruthless Politicians and Consultants cook up to feed them. (IMO even Sarah saying things like "everyone says negative ads don't affect them, that they don't work, but they do" sometimes comes off as "these silly simple peons who aren't professionals in the political trade like me, they are so naive about what People Really Are Like / The World Really Works, so easily manipulated" condescension.)

    This election has certainly shown that's not the case. Also, the SoS position really isn't an overly partisan one anyway. I am sure some cynics assume that a SoS always puts a thumb (or more) on the scale to favor their own political party in elections.
    But the average voter doesn't want wild eyed conspiracy theorists running the process of elections, anymore than they would hypothetically vote for a dog catcher candidate convinced that aliens have invaded Earth wearing furry doggy disguises, and running on a platform about being the right guy for fighting the aliens.

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    1. MrMalredo

      The whole theory that winning elections comes down to base turn out is hogwash. It's pushed by extremists in both parties because it's the only way they can justify their extremism as being an electoral positive. I think the GOP is more guilty of this, but it certainly effects the Democrats too. "If a MAGA Conservative ran in Massachusetts he can bring out the silent majority and win" or "We can win West Virginia if we can push a real progressive who can inspire the youth and the working class".

      Swing voters very much still exist and they're very much who decide most elections.

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    2. Seth

      I'm an Illinoisan in my mid-30s, consider myself center-right, and have generally voted split-ticket, but mostly on the Republican side. This election was the widest split of any ballots I've cast, as too many of the Rs were off in MAGA-land. In a couple statewide races, I made protest votes for the Libertarian candidate, as both the D and Rs had disqualified themself for me. The Republican challenger for the governorship was a Trumpy guy who is much to far right to reflect the consensus of the state, and the sleazy Democratic incumbent spent millions helping him win the primary.

      Meanwhile, downballot, we had some great candidates on both sides. Our Democratic county sheriff has been doing an excellent job and has created addition-recovery programs and other transition programs for releasees that had become a model for surrounding counties. Our Republican county clerk ran organized and efficient elections through the pandemic turmoil, and quickly and effectively refuted the "Stop the Steal" myths. He defeated an election denier primary challenger, and I was happy to see him also prevail in the general.

      I took some comfort in Sarah's discussion on ticket-splitting in a recent podcast. She argued that ticket-splitting gets noticed more than abstention, as it clearly shows voters didn't like the candidate specifically. The Georgia results show this really well.

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      Mick.Staton

      I think the difference here is that, like most extreme partisans, people are forgetting the independent voters. If you look at exit polling for this year it confirms that nearly all Democrats voted for the Democrat and nearly all Republicans voted for the Republican, but it was the independent voters that decided to pick and choose. They voted for some Republicans and not others. They were the ones blocking the Trump backed candidates while voting for the normal Republicans.

      Both parties have seemed to forget that politics is the art of persuasion. Both sides are playing base strategies and hoping the independents swing their way without doing anything to actually earn their votes. I am hoping Republicans are learning the lesson that the country is done with Trump and his insanity and acts accordingly.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Wilhelm

        Yes, the independents. And the swing voters. And the split ticket voters. And the new voters (What is it, 6 or 7 percent every four years?)

        In Georgia, where 90 percent (or more) of the electorate was locked in before the Senate candidates won their nominations. So that left 250,000 voters out of about 2.5 million to decide the election.

        That election has already cost $250 million by some estimates, and that's before the runoff starts. That's $1,000 per swing/split/undecided voter so far? Is my math right?

        That's startling.

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        1. MathewA

          Yep, might have been more cost effective to just buy the votes.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Wilhelm

    Thanks for the concise roundup, Harvest.

    This makes me generally feel better about things going forward. And it reminds me a bit of the Clinton Effect. Bill Clinton was charismatic and popular with a certain branch of the voting public. But there was no Transitive Property of Clinton popularity. Candidates he supported didn't do particularly well.

    So far, Trump-supported candidates aren't either. Let's see if the candidates -- and the voters -- notice.

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    1. Seth

      That's an interesting parallel I hadn't considered. It does make sense, though, as they're both very charismatic (and narcissistic) personalities.

      I'd be a lot happier with the Clinton types, though, who seek power through attracting consensus from the broad middle, thank stoking the anger and enthusiasm from the fringes. To some point, success in politics requires being on the narcissism scale, so perhaps we should be more aware of that, and think about how to choose the healthier characters on that spectrum.

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      1. Dlnevins

        Yes. Plus, there's a big difference between the narcissistic types who respect the laws and informal norms of our political system and those who will not. I highly doubt that Clinton would have tried to retain power through illegal means had he lost his re-election bid.

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