2020 election deniers on the ballot for key offices in battleground states

Geoff Bennett:

Voters head to the polls today to vote for primary election candidates in Alaska, Florida, and Wyoming. We're taking a closer look now at a couple of themes emerging in this year's contests.

First up, election deniers running for office across the country.

Amna Nawaz:

In several key battleground states, Republican candidates who've questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election are on the ballot. If elected to statewide offices like governor and secretary of state, these candidates could shape how elections are administered and certified in the years ahead.

Our White House correspondent, Liz Landers, has been tracking all of this and joins us now.

So, Liz, who are some of these election deniers running in key states, and could some of them win?

Liz Landers:

The answer is yes.

The Constitution says that states decide the time, place, and manner of conducting their own elections. So that's why we wanted to look at who was running for governor and secretary of state in some of these key swing states.

In five of the most important swing states, looking at these governor's races, there's a Republican nominee who has a record of election denialism. Let's start with Arizona, Andy Biggs. He voted against certifying the 2020 election in his own state there as a sitting member of Congress.

In Michigan, John James has said that the 2020 election was -- quote -- "rigged and manipulated" against himself and Donald Trump. In Wisconsin, Tom Tiffany objected to the 2020 certification for both Arizona and Pennsylvania.

In Georgia this cycle, we have Rick Jackson. He ran ads against the current secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who did certify that 2020 election. He ran in that gubernatorial primary. He likened him to Judas for his resistance to Trump's pressure to overturn the 2020 election result in that state. And then, finally, in Pennsylvania, we have Stacy Garrity. She's pointed to irregularities, she says, in the 2020 vote.

Amna, Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona, of course, are all states where the Trump administration has shown up for various investigations into the 2020 election. And one more state I want to mention, Florida, as we said, is voting today. They're not a swing state anymore, but they do have the gubernatorial likely Republican nominee.

Byron Donalds does have an election denier history and he would appoint the secretary of state in that state.

Amna Nawaz:

So what about some of the downballot races, offices like secretary of state, that are more directly involved with election administration?

Liz Landers:

So, two of these key swing states. Arizona and also Nevada, have Republican nominees right now who have a history of questioning the 2020 election results.

In Arizona, Alex Kolodin represented some of the alternate electors as an attorney himself. He also filed a lawsuit to try to overturn Biden's election win in 2020. In Nevada, there's also a candidate who's running again there, Jim Marchant. He's been a vocal election denier, and he has been closely tied to the fake electors scheme and been photographed with those people in late 2020.

Arizona is particularly concerning, though, because the slate of Republican candidates, they're all election deniers. We mentioned Biggs and Kolodin. And also the attorney general nominee there is an election denier too. So if all of these candidates win in November, they could play a key role in overseeing the elections and voting laws in that state.

Arizona has also been a focal point of the Trump administration with Secretary Noem visiting there, making a speech about election integrity. And this is not a swing state either, but Nebraska also has an interesting candidate, Republican Scott Petersen. He has election denier history himself and has amplified conspiracies about the 2020 election there for years and has also questioned the voting machines in that state.

Amna Nawaz:

So, Liz, we have some examples we can look back on in history, right? In 2022, there were some election deniers who also ran for office. How did they do? And for those that won, what did they do once they got into office?

Liz Landers:

Sure.

Let's look at some of the governors who won in 2022. In Texas, Governor Abbott, in Florida, Governor DeSantis, and in Alabama, Governor Ivey have all overseen mid-decade redistricting efforts, which is a big push that obviously happened in the last few months that we have been covering.

There were, of course, Republicans that won governor's races in that cycle who did not push those kinds of policies. But then when you also look at secretary of state candidates that won in 2022 as well, Wes Allen is an interesting example of this from Alabama, because he led that state to leave ERIC, which is this electronic voter registration system that most election officials that I have talked to have said is really helpful for them to cross-reference voters registration in those states.

But there were also a number of secretary of state candidates, election deniers in 2022, who lost, Kristina Karamo in Michigan, Mark Finchem in Arizona, Jim Marchant again in Nevada, and Jody Hice in Georgia. But if those candidates had won, they could have had a pretty big impact on this election cycle because they would have been overseeing these.

Amna Nawaz:

We have seen election denialism become more mainstream in the Republican Party. We have also seen efforts in Congress to try to clarify election certification. So what exactly has changed since 2020?

Liz Landers:

After January 6, 2021, there was a big push in Congress to further clarify what the role of Congress is and the role of the vice president is in the certification process.

Congress passed the Electoral Count Reform Act in December of 2022. And two points, I think, that really stick out based on what happened at the Capitol on January 6, this piece of legislation has made it absolutely clear that the vice president's role in the electoral vote-counting process is ministerial. The vice president cannot reject electors. That was something that President Trump at the time was pushing Vice President Mike Pence to do.

It also makes it more difficult for members of Congress to make objections to state election results. That was another part of what happened on January 6 that snowballed the whole insurrection of the Capitol that day, Amna.

Amna Nawaz:

All right, Liz Landers, thank you very much.

Liz Landers:

Of course.