Voters have rejected some of the most visceral election deniers in the US, rejecting Republican supporters of Donald Trump’s stolen election lie in several key races though some critical results have yet to be called.
Democracy was on the ballot in the midterm elections, with avid participants in efforts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential contest vying to gain control of how votes are conducted in their states. Several of those candidates fell short on the night.
In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor, was convincingly defeated by his Democratic rival Josh Shapiro. Mastriano acted as Trump’s front person in the state in attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential result and was present at the US Capitol on the day of the January 6 insurrection.
Pennsylvania’s governor has considerable powers over elections as they choose who will be the secretary of state – the top voting official.
Several other races for secretary of state were among the most closely watched this cycle, given the prospect of anti-democratic candidates seizing control over voting procedures. That scenario has prompted jitters ahead of the 2024 presidential race in which Trump has indicated he wants to stand again.
In Michigan, all three Democrats running for statewide office beat Republicans who questioned the 2020 election results.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer was re-elected to a second term over Tudor Dixon, who declined to say Joe Biden won the state in 2020. Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, also won re-election, defeating Matthew DePerno, a lawyer who became a key player in spreading election misinformation after the 2020 election. In an election night speech, Whitmer said the results affirmed “facts over lies and democracy over fascism”.
Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s current secretary of state who staunchly defended the 2020 election results, defeated Kristina Karamo, who rose to national prominence after she spread false claims about fraud in the Detroit count.
“Well, well, well, democracy has prevailed,” Benson said as she took the stage at a Democratic victory party in downtown Detroit in the early hours of Wednesday. “Today Michigan voters showed the world that they will vote for truth over lies, facts over conspiracy theories, real results over empty promises.”
Election deniers also lost races to be the top election official in New Mexico and Minnesota.
The initial flurry of results will be met with relief from pro-democracy groups and election experts with some of the most potentially dystopian outcomes being averted. However, several races that have attracted much concern have yet to be finalized.
Arizona has become the ground zero of election denial in the US since the eruption of toxic tussles over its 2020 count, and Mark Finchem, a state lawmaker, has become a national embodiment of the threat.
On Wednesday morning Finchem’s battle to become Arizona’s secretary of state remained too close to call. With 62% of the vote counted, he was on 47% to his Democratic rival Adrian Fontes’s 53%.
Finchem spearheaded attempts to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 and was at the US Capitol behind the barricades on January 6.
Kari Lake, a former Phoenix area Fox TV anchor and another acerbic election denier, remained neck-and-neck with her Democratic rival Katie Hobbs in Arizona’s gubernatorial race. Lake is among several Republican candidates who have hinted that they might not accept the results of their elections should they lose.
In an echo of the volatile events of 2020, the outcome of Arizona’s statewide contests may depend on legal challenges in Maricopa county, the most populous part of the state. Equipment problems were reported with vote counting machines and the Republican National Committee has launched a lawsuit which Lake and the Republican candidate for US Senate Blake Masters have joined.
Another prominent election denier, Jim Marchant, is bidding for the secretary of state position in Nevada. Marchant, who has close ties to influential figures in the racist conspiracy theory QAnon, was tied with his Democratic rival Cisco Aguilar with 72% of the count done.
There were further signs of voters growing alert to the Trump-inspired threat to democracy in other polls held on Tuesday. In a ballot measure, Michigan voters decided to bake into the state constitution an amendment that significantly expands voting access and makes it harder for partisan actors to overturn elections.
It marked the first time the ballot initiative process had been used to explicitly counter attempts to overturn elections.
But the longtime consequences of Trump’s willingness to subvert the legitimate results of an election for personal political gain remain a danger. A survey by the New York Times found that by Wednesday morning some 210 Republicans who actively questioned the 2020 election result had won congressional or state races.
