(Bloomberg) — Candidates for key posts in battleground states who support former President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims of election fraud in 2020 were racking up defeats as the races were called.
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Nationally, more than 225 candidates for governor, secretary of state, attorney general and US Congress on the ballot Tuesday were election deniers.
But the most closely watched races were for key positions in the swing states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that would put the winners in a position to oversee the 2024 election.
Some election deniers will be headed to the US Senate, including Ted Budd in North Carolina, JD Vance in Ohio and Markwayne Mullin in Oklahoma. But New Hampshire Senate candidate Don Bolduc lost to incumbent Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan.
Kim Crockett Defeated in Minnesota
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon defeated election denier Kim Crockett to win a third term Tuesday, in a closely watched race to be the state’s top elections official.
The Democratic incumbent beat corporate lawyer Kim Crockett, 55% to 45%, with most of votes counted, according to the AP. Crockett’s campaign centered on her baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
A former state representative, Simon won re-election as secretary of state in 2018 by nearly 9 percentage points, but he faced an unexpectedly competitive race against Crockett, who called the 2020 election “rigged” and “illegitimate.”
During the Republican state convention, Crockett’s campaign aired a video that showed Simon, who is Jewish, being controlled with puppet strings by Soros Fund Management chairman George Soros, a frequent target of antisemitic conspiracy theories.
The state’s Republican Party chairman apologized for the video, but Crockett called criticism of the video “contrived and bogus.”
Crockett campaigned on shortening the early-voting period and restricting same-day voter registration and vote-by-mail. In a 2020 radio interview that resurfaced during the campaign, she questioned whether disabled voters and people who don’t speak English should be allowed to cast a ballot if they require assistance.
The Minnesota secretary of state race was a top target for Democratic-aligned groups that spent $46 million in an effort to stop election deniers from taking offices with power over upcoming elections.
Tim Michels Defeated in Wisconsin
Democratic Governor Tony Evers won a second term Tuesday, defeating a Republican who questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election in the battleground state.
With almost all the votes counted, Evers beat construction company co-owner Tim Michels 51% to 48%, according to race calls by ABC and NBC.
A first-time candidate, Michels won a crowded Republican primary and was endorsed by Trump, who said Michels would help “end the well-documented fraud in our elections.”
Michels said that if elected he would consider a bill to decertify the 2020 election, a move backed by some election deniers that has no basis in state or federal law. He also pledged to ban ballot drop boxes, require disabled voters to reapply to vote by mail and make major changes to the bipartisan commission that oversees elections.
The Republican-controlled state legislature had often sparred with Evers, who vetoed 24 bills to change election law since the 2020 election.
Tudor Dixon Defeated in Michigan
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer defeated election denier Tudor Dixon Tuesday, winning a second term in the presidential battleground state.
Whitmer beat the conservative commentator after a campaign in which Dixon repeatedly cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election. With two-thirds of the votes counted, Whitmer was ahead 52% to 47%, according to ABC and NBC.
Dixon’s general-election campaign sought to tie Whitmer to President Joe Biden on the economy, criticized pandemic mandates and raised questions about the effect of school closures on test scores. Whitmer, by contrast, highlighted her support of abortion rights and leaned on a last-minute appearance by former President Barack Obama, who won the state twice.
Whitmer said her governorship was “focused on solving problems, not demonizing others.”
After the 2020 vote, Dixon spread Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud, even tweeting in response to him that “leftists” had planned to “steal an election” and saying that “their voter fraud” was “sloppy and obvious.”
During debates in the Republican primary this year, she said that she believed Trump actually won the election and that voting was not fair, but as she closed in on the nomination, she backed slightly away, saying that she didn’t know who won but that “a lot of folks” in the state were concerned.
J.R. Majewski Defeated in Ohio House Race
US Representative Marcy Kaptur defeated an election denier who was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a closely watched race in Ohio.
The longest-serving woman currently in Congress, Kaptur beat J.R. Majewski, 56% to 43% with most of the votes counted, after a barrage of ads featuring footage of the attack on the Capitol.
Majewski first gained attention after using 120 gallons of chalk paint to turn his lawn into a massive “Trump 2020” banner, which he later modified to “Trump 2Q2Q” in an apparent reference to the QAnon conspiracy theory.
He attended Trump’s Jan. 6 rally near the White House and then made his way to the steps of the Capitol, later saying he “wanted nothing more than to go in that building,” but couldn’t because he was with people who had physical limitations. He has said that he did not break any police barriers or commit any crimes that day.
The National Republican Congressional Committee withdrew planned ad spending in Majewski’s race after the Associated Press reported that he misrepresented his military service, claiming that he was deployed in a combat in Afghanistan when he was actually in Qatar. Majewski claimed his military records are “classified” and called the story a “hit piece.”
Doug Mastriano Defeated as Pennsylvania Governor
Democrat Josh Shapiro defeated Republican Doug Mastriano in the governor’s race after a sustained ad campaign that targeted the Republican for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
In a controversial move, Shapiro spent some of his sizable campaign war chest to elevate the cash-strapped Mastriano in a crowded Republican primary, hoping his extreme positions on elections and abortion would make him easier to beat.
With about two-thirds of the vote counted in Pennsylvania, Shapiro was leading with 55% of the vote to Mastriano’s 43% and projected to be the winner by the major broadcast networks. Mastriano was outside the US Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection and worked as a state senator to try to overturn Trump’s loss to Biden.
At an election night event, Mastriano did not immediately concede, but suggested he would when the count was completed.
“It is a constitutional republic that we have, and the people get the last word,” he said. “And what the people of Pennsylvania say, we’ll of course respect that,” he said.
The governor’s race was not solely about election denial.
Shapiro also hit Mastriano for pledging to ban all abortions in the state, and for his ties to Christian White nationalists. Mastriano’s campaign criticized mask mandates during the coronavirus pandemic and called for bans on critical race theory in state schools and restricting public benefits for undocumented immigrants.
The win came amid last-minute concern over voting in Pennsylvania. After a Republican lawsuit led the state Supreme Court to order undated mail ballots be thrown out, local elections officials in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas notified at-risk voters, who stood in long lines to get replacement ballots.
–With assistance from Jennifer Kay.
(Updates with Minnesota race)
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