Stop the Stealers (Mostly) Concede

With some holdouts, losing GOP candidates accept the will of the voters.

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Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon speaks to supporters and volunteers on November 7. (Photo by Sarah Rice/Getty Images)

Whether or not a candidate concedes has no legal bearing on the ultimate outcome of a race: Elections come to a close after the results are canvassed and certified. But so far, more losing candidates who had espoused “Stop the Steal” rhetoric akin to that of former President Donald Trump have actually conceded than some analysts had predicted.

At a media briefing just before last week’s election, when asked if election officials anticipated trouble with candidates refusing to concede, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson answered flatly: “Yes.”

“Unfortunately, this is the moment that we’re in,” Benson, a Democrat, added. “We’re hoping for smoothness and acceptance of the law and facts but you know, candidates don’t get to declare who wins and loses elections anyway. So we will just simply ensure that the voters’ will is respected whatever that may be.”

Once the results of the Michigan gubernatorial contest became clear Tuesday night, GOP candidate Tudor Dixon initially claimed the race wasn’t over. But by Wednesday, Dixon’s campaign sent out a statement noting that the candidate “called Governor [Gretchen Whitmer] this morning to concede and wish her well.” Ditto with GOP candidate Matthew DePerno in the Michigan attorney general race.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Encouraging news.

    Admittedly, this is just further proof that most of them were cowards repeating Trump’s line out of fear of him, but too scared to do the same in their own election losses to benefit themselves.

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  2. Avatar photo
    Mesulkanen

    As some political pundit quipped tonight: Kari Lake told McCain supporters to go to hell, and now they’ve told her likewise.

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  3. Avatar photo
    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    The AP, major networks, and major newspapers are all proclaiming that Hobbs has beaten Lake now.

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      Will Bates

      Let the Kari Lake ‘they stole the election’ games begin..

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  4. Raincheck

    It has been a real pleasure to see many election deniers lose, and then to see them concede. It seems that maybe the worst of this fever has passed.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Devin H

      I'm relieved certainly. My take on it is that all of these people felt really brave with the mob behind them, but when the wind went of their sails they revealed that they never really truly believed at all. It was simply convenient and the best way to gain clout by denying the election results.

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  5. Philebus

    Nice article; good take on what is, and what is not. In athletic competition (if you're serious about it) losing sucks; there is no way around it, it just sucks. I can't imagine any issue that would compel me to run for office - not even dog catcher. So, there must be some driving force that causes people to put it all out there on the field of battle (possibly that's too romantic, but I can see the correlation). All the people who become involved in political campaigns, from the volunteers, to the top planners believe in a common cause; winning your cause. In athletic competition at the end of the game, you shake hands, and say "good game" - you may not like it, and it may be bitter words in your mouth, but you do it regardless. This is something that is time honored and admirable; as it should be, for both for winners and losers. But I don't think that this notion of fairness and good will transmits well to politics, because in politics you're talking about ideals, not a scorecard.

    I'm getting a bit long winded here, but I can certainly understand how hard it is to concede to defeat in such matters. It's a shame that a previous President has chosen to go down that road - for whatever reasons - but it's good to see that we may be turning that corner (just a bit).

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      Aylene Wright

      The other big difference is that in a sports competition, the results are usually obvious in real time. Even in judged sports, the judges give the scores in minutes, not days. In politics, the tradition has been (until Trump) for candidates to concede well *before* all the votes are actually counted. This works perfectly well in races that aren't close, especially in very partisan leaning areas where basically the outcome is known months *before* election day. NY and CA take days to count votes but it doesn't really matter because most races are blowouts.

      But although elections taking days to call isn't actually a new thing, I have noticed that some people are hand waving away any critiques of such ongoing delays by saying that it just plays into the hands of election deniers, and that the status quo is just fine. I disagree.

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      1. Avatar photo
        MattA

        And now CA and NY’s complacency is leaving everyone in limbo on the House.

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      2. Avatar photo
        MattA

        Too bad after Arizona’s miserable performance last time, their legislature chose to run around making noise with the cyber ninjas nonsense instead of taking steps to bring their elections processing up to even an average level of proficiency. Good grief. It’s not that hard.

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          Mesulkanen

          The slow count here in AZ is a GOP self-inflicted wound: every ballot’s signature must be verified, and I also think there have been an excess of ballot challenges, not necessarily justified

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          1. Bdecicco2001

            IIRC, Trump openly said that he planned on using the GOP-created delay in counting mail-in ballots to declarehimself the winner.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Patrick

    There’s a wide chasm between “saying an election was stolen in a dishonest attempt to win over gullible voters” and “being willing to have your running mate hanged in same dishonest attempt.”

    Thankfully, we keep finding out that Trump really was and remains a unique menace to this country.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Aylene Wright

      Although I have feared political violence for a while it occurs to me that actually overturning election results through violent means takes a lot of hard work and most politicians in the US at least, aren't actually going to put that much effort into something that's 99% likely to fail and result in a long prison sentence or worse.

      Even before these encouraging results I had doubted that Trump could actually pull off a coup in 2024 from *outside* the WH when he couldn't manage to do it when he had all the powers of the US Presidency. Although that doesn't mean he's not a threat at all, some of the fear porn had also assumed that Democrats would pretty much do nothing to fight back, which I also found to be silly. There's a fine line between being vigilant and being paranoid.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Tylergveld

    One thing I have been thinking about is how much easier it is for these people to make big, nebulous election fraud claims about the whole country versus small, localized claims of fraud in their own personal races. In the former, you have no personal risk (unless you are on the "My Pillow Guy" level) and can throw out claims without consequence or need of proof. When it is YOUR race, YOUR constituents, you have to have something more than unverified claims. And you need to have the resources to back it up in court. All these instances show that the election deniers were bluffing all along and when it came time to go all-in or fold, they had to fold.

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    1. Kipling_Sapling

      That makes sense as to why it's happening this way. I've been really puzzled at how many of them are so willing to concede, and this is probably the reason. Thanks for the insight.

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    2. Avatar photo
      Patrick

      Agree. It’s certainly an argument against federalizing all election management.

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