From Vox · Dustin DeSoto · · 3m
Election deniers are running for governor again
Candidates who rejected the 2020 result are on the ballot in five true battlegrounds, and some would help run the next election.
In brief
Candidates who rejected the 2020 result are on the ballot in five true battlegrounds, and some would help run the next election. Election denial has become a liability at the ballot box, but it only matters if the 2026 races are close enough for someone to contest. Originally reported by Vox.
The lie that never left
Trump has spent years claiming fraud and refusing to accept his 2020 loss to Biden. That claim did not stay a talking point, it became a hiring credential.
Deniers took the machinery
Since 2020, Republicans who questioned the result have joined local election boards, worked inside election offices, trained poll observers, and pushed to rewrite state election law.
Now they want governorships
Heading into the 2026 midterms, candidates who denied or questioned 2020 are running for governor and other powerful offices in key swing states.
Five states, one pattern
CNN's Andrew Kaczynski looked at Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia. In four of the five, a candidate for governor outright denied the 2020 results.
“These are all states that Trump won in 2016, Biden in 2020, then Trump in 2024.”
Behind, but not out
Most of these candidates trail in polling. Two of the five states have already produced big polling misses, and all five are genuine battlegrounds where anything can happen.
Nobody wants to talk about it
The 2020 dispute barely surfaces in the campaigns themselves. It only came up when reporters made it come up.
Three quietly backed off
When CNN reached out, three of the candidates immediately said Biden won in 2020 and that they would certify whoever wins their state in 2028.
Two would not say it
Andy Biggs and John James did not say Biden won, did not commit to certifying the winner, and gave no real comment at all.
Michigan three times
John James once said plainly that Biden won in 2020. Running this cycle, apparently chasing a Trump endorsement, he told a rally Trump had won Michigan three times.
“He won Michigan three times.”
Not a plot, a residue
Kaczynski reads this as leftover saturation, not a coordinated plan. Denial was so embedded in the party by 2020 that some deniers were bound to end up on swing state ballots.
“It was just so thoroughly embedded in the Republican Party in 2020.”
A liability Trump likes anyway
Many of the deniers Trump backed in 2022 lost. He keeps backing them because he likes candidates who say he won.
“Trump likes the candidates who lie and say that he won in 2020.”
Margins decide everything
If races are close, expect fights over thrown out ballots and claimed victories. If Democrats win by real margins, the denial never gets traction.
“The results will be the results.”
The main idea
Election denial has become a liability at the ballot box, but it only matters if the 2026 races are close enough for someone to contest.
