Pro-Trump election deniers flop in important Secretary of State races
Former President Donald Trump zeroed in on some key Secretary of State races, where he believed an ally in the office would help him win when he likely runs again in 2024.
nypost.com
All the Trump-backed candidates in key swing states who denied the 2020 election results, while vying to be their state’s top election official, lost their race — in a telling sign of Donald Trump’s destructive influence.
Former President Trump zeroed in on some key Secretary of State races, where he believed an ally in the highly-regarded position — which serves as a state’s chief elections official — would help him win when he likely runs again in 2024.
However, the embattled ex-commander-in-chief’s strategy seemed to backfire.
Most notably, Republican Jim Marchant, the leader of a conservative group of Trump supporters who claim the 2020 election was stolen, lost his race to be Nevada’s Secretary of State Saturday
Marchant is president of the America First Secretary of State Coalition, formed to support a slate of right-wing candidates in the 2022 secretary of state elections.
Marchant promised voters that if he was elected, Trump — who he has repeatedly said won in 2020 — would be president in 2024.
“When my coalition of secretary of state candidates around the country get elected, we’re going to fix the whole country, and President Trump is going to be president again in 2024,” Marchant confidently declared in October.
However, America First and Trump-backed candidates fizzled in their races.
Republican activist Kristina Karamo lost by 14 points to Democrat incumbent Jocelyn Benson in Michigan, Mark Finchem lost the hotly-contested Arizona race to Democrat Adrian Fontes, and Audrey Trujillo was beat out by her progressive counterpart and incumbent Maggie Toulouse Oliver in New Mexico.
Michigan GOP secretary of state candidate Karamo is a community college instructor who became a major voice in the Great Lake State for her election denial.
She repeatedly parroted the baseless claim that former President Trump won the 2020 election, and rallied with him.
