by Carl P. Leubsdorf
Whichever party scores the most victories in next week’s midterm elections, the halls of Congress and the nation’s statehouses are still going to be filled next year with election deniers who questioned President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
Barring the unexpected, the results will put many in position to enact further restrictions on voting rights, change traditional tabulation procedures and even challenge the 2024 results — though critics of the 2020 tally never produced valid evidence of significant fraud.
This probably won’t be a problem everywhere. Voters in several of the most tightly contested 2020 states — including Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania — seem likely to elect or reelect officials who stood up to former President Donald Trump’s unproven demands to reject the decisions of their state’s voters.
In many other states, one party enjoys such a lopsided majority that even victories by 2020 election deniers won’t significantly affect their bottom line.
But in at least two key swing states, Arizona and Nevada, Republican candidates who rejected the 2020 results have a real chance to capture the office that supervises their election machinery — secretary of state. In a third, Wisconsin, the possible election of a GOP governor could enable the gerrymandered Republican-controlled legislature to enact restrictions the current Democratic governor blocked.
And in the nation’s capital, more than half of the Republican members in what is likely to be the new U.S. House majority voted in 2021 to reject Biden’s victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania, though election officials and judges from both parties rejected Trump’s unproven fraud claims there.
This prospect raises the question: What will these members and state officials do in 2024 in the event of another close election? Will they accept the will of the voters, or will they seek to substitute their own partisan preference, as many sought to do in 2021?
These are not academic questions. They stem from the actions and statements of the candidates involved, though those factors appear to be playing a lesser role in motivating voters than such more personal current issues as inflation and abortion.
According to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, 71% of all voters — including majorities of both Democrats and Republicans — said democracy was at risk. (Unsurprisingly, their views differ on who is most responsible.) But just 7% identified that as the most important problem facing the country.
As for election deniers, 71% of Republicans said they would be comfortable in voting for a candidate who believed the 2020 election was stolen, compared with 37% of independents and just 12% of Democrats.
Because so many candidates who reject the 2020 results are Republicans running in safely Republican districts or states, this ensures that many of next Tuesday’s winners will be people who rejected that outcome and might be prepared to do so again in 2024.
The extent of this problem was underscored by recent analyses by The New York Times and The Washington Post of the number of 2020 election deniers seeking office in 2022.
According to The Post, 291 of 569 Republican candidates for Congress and top state positions have questioned the 2020 results, either at the time or since. (Some are now denying they did so.) That’s a majority of GOP candidates for those offices. In Texas, for example, The Post listed 27 of the 42 Republican candidates.
In key swing states like Arizona and Michigan, GOP candidates for governor, secretary of state and attorney general are all election deniers. Even in Georgia, where Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger stood up to Trump’s demands to reverse the results, other GOP candidates questioned the 2020 outcome.
In some cases, there is potential for the kind of controversy next week at the state level that would mirror what happened when Trump refused to recognize the 2020 outcome and pressured friendly state officials and legislators to reverse it.
According to The Post and The Times, at least eight GOP candidates for governor and six Senate hopefuls refused to say if they would accept the results if they lost.
(The Post said all Democrats running for those offices said they would accept the results.)
An underlying factor in this situation remains Trump’s continued success in persuading many Republican voters he was robbed in 2020. In addition, the former president is continuing to seek changes in election procedures that he erroneously blames for his defeat.
In early September, according to several news organizations, Trump met with key associates to discuss how to persuade Pennsylvania GOP legislators to repeal a 2019 law — passed by a Republican-controlled legislature — allowing all voters to cast ballots by mail. Republicans are also challenging it in court.
If enough 2020 election deniers win next Tuesday, measures restricting mail voting and enacting other curbs on voters could again be major issues when state legislatures meet next year. And the margins in three of the last six presidential elections have been razor thin.
