Denying The 2020 Election Wasn't A Winning Strategy For Political Newcomers
Doug Mastriano has been one of the most ardent supporters of former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent. As state senator, he attempted to launch a forensic “audit” of Pennsylvania’s election results. He attended the “Save America” rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. And on Tuesday, he lost his race for Pennsylvania governor, according to ABC News projections.
As our forecast predicted, the majority of candidates who denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election are projected to win their races. But the bulk of those wins are from incumbent Republicans, in particular members of Congress who voted not to certify some of the 2020 election results. Many of the most vocal election-denying candidates who made claims of voter fraud central to their campaigns failed to break through, as did most newcomers who aligned themselves with Trump’s stolen election narrative. While many factors have influenced these results, the overall trend suggests that playing to voters who don’t trust the results of the 2020 election wasn’t a winning strategy by itself.
Of the 199 Republican candidates for the House, Senate, governor, secretary of state, and attorney general who deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election, so far 134 (67 percent) are projected to win their races, 52 are projected to lose, and 13 have yet to be called, as of Thursday, Nov. 10, at 4:30 p.m. Eastern. Of those 134, 112 are incumbent members of the House, many of whom voted not to certify the results of the 2020 election and still haven’t said the election was legitimate, but who also did not make the issue of election fraud central to their campaigns. Take Rep. Doug Lamborn, the Republican representing Colorado’s 5th District. Lamborn voted to not certify the 2020 election results but then seemingly dropped the subject entirely. Lamborn managed to fend off more vocal election-denying, hard-right challengers during the GOP primary in June, and ABC News now projects him to win reelection in the deep-red district. But it also includes some vocal election deniers, like Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who released a campaign ad where she claimed, “the fake news, big tech, and blue state liberals stole the election from President Trump.” Ivey, who has been Alabama governor since 2017, is projected to win reelection.
Election-denying newcomers running in open seats or against Democratic incumbents had a harder time on Tuesday — in the races that have been called, the majority of these candidates have lost. Of the 80 non-incumbent Republican election deniers who ran for House, Senate, governor, secretary of state, and attorney general, just 22 are currently projected to win (28 percent), while 49 (61 percent) are projected to lose, and nine are in races that have yet to be called. Many of these losses were in races where the Democrat had an advantage but were far from guaranteed slam dunks. J.R. Majewski, the Republican candidate for Ohio’s 9th District who attended the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol, told FiveThirtyEight in an email that there were “irregularities and illegalities that occurred across multiple states” in the 2020 election. Heading into the election, our final forecast gave Majewski a 22-in-100 chance of winning, but he began the campaign with much stronger odds. Majewski is projected to lose to incumbent Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/denying-the-2020-election-wasnt-a-winning-strategy-for-political-newcomers/
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