Here’s their most salient example: Tim Michels, who ran in Wisconsin’s crowded Republican primary for governor. He got Trump’s endorsement over over Rebecca Kleefisch, a former lieutenant governor who was endorsed by former Vice President Mike Pence. In a primary debate, Michels said that he would not make decertifying the 2020 election—an ongoing and absurd obsession of Trump’s—a priority.
“A roar came from Mar-a-Lago, communicated through aides to Mr. Michels, demanding that he embrace the decertification movement, according to people familiar with the conversations,” the Times reports. The result? Michels immediately made a statement that he is “very, very fired up about this election integrity issue,” would sign a decertification bill if it came to him from the legislature, and started going around spouting the conspiracy theory behind the Dinesh D’Souza “2000 Mules” about stuffed ballot drop boxes. Michels won that primary and is vying for the governor’s seat against incumbent Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
That leaves non-Trump Republicans in the wilderness. Bill Palatucci, a Republican National Committee member from New Jersey, told the Times about his efforts to pass a resolution denouncing the false narrative that the vice president has the power to reject Electoral College results—without naming any names. He got some support for his resolution, but his efforts coincided with the Arizona primary in which three statewide election-denying candidates—Blake Masters for Senate, Kari Lake for governor, and Mark Finchem for secretary of state—prevailed. After that, “There was, well, very polite silence,” Palatucci said.
The majority of candidate for the U.S. House and Senate are or have been election-deniers—70% of them have made statements or continue to make statements questioning the fact that President Joe Biden legitimately got 7 million more votes and 74 more electors than Trump, and that court after court in multiple states denied Trump’s ridiculous lawsuits challenging the election. But the Cook Political Report says about two-thirds of those candidates, including incumbents, are favored to win. “[I]t is harder to find Republican candidates who unequivocally accept the results than those who question or reject them,” the Times says of its analysis.
That’s a U.S. Congress seeded with profoundly undemocratic members who refuse to accept the results of a free and fair election. That includes the entirety of the House Republican leadership team. Whether it’s an admittedly well-founded fear of the violent Republican base turning on them, fear of Trump turning his violent mob against them, or mass delusion, it’s phenomenally dangerous.
A number of these candidates are already planning to deny the results of the 2022 election if they don’t go their way. That’s a dry run for 2024 when they’ll make another play for the White House.
That’s why we’ve got to stop them in their tracks now, with Democratic officials in place in key states: Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin. State officials—attorney general, secretary of state, and supreme court justices—all have a role in ensuring that voting laws are equitably applied and followed, that the vote counts are secure and valid, and that the will of the voter is followed.
Daily Kos has endorsed 17 Democrats for those seats in eight critical states. The single most powerful thing we can do to stop the election-deniers and stop Trump from stealing 2024 is to elect these Democrats to those key positions downballot.
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Joan McCarter
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