Candidates with a history of denying the 2020 election results are on the ballot in states across the country this fall, running for the position of secretary of state. If they win, they would be uniquely positioned to exert control over their states’ elections.
At least three presidential battlegrounds — Nevada, Arizona and Wisconsin — are among the states with candidates running in November who have cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 election. If they win, these candidates could be key allies to President Donald Trump’s efforts to obtain voter rolls and federalize election administration.
“They may just willingly give up election materials. They may just willingly give up cast ballots. They may just willingly give up election machines,” said Edward Caspar, chief counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan legal advocacy group. “By having conspiracy-theory-minded individuals in power, it really puts that at risk.”
Unlike in other primaries, the president has rarely weighed in on secretary of state races.
Trending
But Alexander Kolodin, the Republican nominee for the position in Arizona, was endorsed by Trump in July. That endorsement could play a key role in November, as it has in several Republican primaries.
“Being a Trump ally, getting the Trump endorsement, and at least supporting Trump’s claims of election fraud in 2020, or even beyond that, seem to give candidates an electoral boost,” said Rich Barton, a research fellow for Unite America, a nonpartisan election-reform group. “Over the last few years, election denialism has become something of a litmus test within the Republican Party.”
When asked if the president is looking at these nominees as potential allies in implementing voting restrictions, the White House demurred.
“President Trump wants every state in America to clean up their voter rolls and fully secure their elections, regardless of whether they are led by Democrats or Republicans,” Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, told NOTUS in a statement.
In Nevada, Jim Marchant, who is best known for standing alongside a group of Republicans who signed fake electoral certificates claiming Trump won the 2020 election in Nevada, won his primary in June. He has repeatedly undermined the results of the 2020 election, including in an interview with NBC News in 2022 in which he said, “it’s almost statistically impossible that Joe Biden won.”
It’s Marchant’s second run for secretary of state and his second time facing Cisco Aguilar, the incumbent. Marchant made his first run for the position as the president of the America First Secretary of State Coalition, a group of election deniers who ran for top election roles in 2022. His campaign site this year states that he wants voters to submit proof of citizenship to register and cast ballots, wants results to be hand-counted, and wants universal mail-in voting to end. It also claims that Marchant was “a victim of election fraud” in 2020 when he unsuccessfully ran for Congress.
Marchant’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Next door in Arizona, Kolodin, who helped file a lawsuit that questioned the results of the 2020 election and was later thrown out by a federal judge, won his primary in July. He’s campaigning to “harden systems” and “count every legal vote,” according to his campaign site, against incumbent Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. Kolodin, currently a state representative, pushed and is campaigning on a proposition on track to appear on Arizona ballots this fall that could complicate voting, including through a measure that would require a photo ID to cast an absentee ballot.
“Arizona is a major swing state,” Kolodin said during a PBS debate in May. “The road to the White House runs directly through the Arizona secretary of state’s office. It’s incumbent that we put somebody in there who’s ready to hit the ground Day 1.”
Kolodin’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Wisconsin’s Republican candidate, Jay Schroeder, is running on dismantling the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, a group of appointees who administer elections statewide. He told NBC in 2022 that he would not have certified the 2020 election results if he were secretary of state. Schroeder, whose campaign also did not respond to a request for comment, refers to the commission as a “failed experiment” on his campaign website.
“The current system is an arbitrary disaster that lacks the transparency Wisconsinites deserve,” Schroeder adds on his site.
One of Trump’s priorities is to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections and tighten the requirements to vote by mail. The president’s long history of casting doubt on the integrity of elections has weakened voters’ trust in election results across party lines.
“They are willing to say things to please the Republican base, to please Donald Trump, even if it’s not a credible claim to start with,” said Rick Hasen, an election law expert and law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, of Republican candidates who agree with the president’s claims about the 2020 election. “It suggests that some of these people might be willing to help Trump subvert the outcome of elections if that’s what Trump was trying to do.”
Author
