These 2024 Republican candidates disputed the 2020 election results
By Daniel Dale, CNN
Washington (CNN) — It’s not just Donald Trump and JD Vance. Numerous other 2020 election deniers are running in 2024 elections.
At least 23 of this year’s 51 Republican nominees for governor, state elections chief or the US Senate have rejected or contested the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump.
The list includes prominent Republican nominees in competitive states, like gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson of North Carolina and Senate candidates Kari Lake of Arizona, Bernie Moreno of Ohio, Sam Brown of Nevada and Ted Cruz of Texas. It also includes the favorites to become elections chief in Missouri and West Virginia and the favorites in the races for governor in Indiana, Missouri, Montana and West Virginia.
The success of so many 2020 election deniers in Republican primaries this year demonstrates that Trump’s ongoing campaign of election lies continues to have a strong hold on his party. Even four years later, candidates’ views on the 2020 election are relevant in important practical ways.
Governors and election chiefs play key roles in setting voting rules and certifying the results. US senators have more limited elections-related responsibilities, but they can object to the congressional counting of electoral votes, pursue national elections legislation, and sometimes hold hearings and issue subpoenas on elections issues.
A long list
At least five of this year’s 11 Republican nominees for governor, at least four of this year’s six Republican nominees for state elections chief, and at least 14 of this year’s 34 Republican nominees for the US Senate have rejected or contested the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
There are key differences between the 23 candidates. Some have explicitly called the 2020 election “stolen” and denied that Biden was the real winner, while others have cast doubt on the outcome with vaguer rhetoric. Some are incumbents who used their offices to back attempts to overturn Trump’s defeat, while others promoted those efforts from outside government.
Some followed through on their announced plans to vote against counting Biden’s electoral votes on January 6, 2021, while others abandoned those plans after a mob stormed the US Capitol that day. And some are veteran lawmakers cruising to reelection, while others are longshots in Democratic-dominated states.
Here is a guide to the statements and actions of the 23 candidates. We will update this article if we find evidence that additional candidates belong on the list.
Candidates for governor
Eleven states are holding elections for governor this year. At least five of the 11 Republican nominees – Mark Robinson of North Carolina, Mike Braun of Indiana, Mike Kehoe of Missouri, Greg Gianforte of Montana and Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia – have supported efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in 2020 or denied the legitimacy of that victory, though Braun ended up discarding his plan to object to Biden’s electoral votes.
CNN could not find any public statements on the legitimacy of Biden’s victory from one major Republican gubernatorial candidate, former Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. Her campaign did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.
Indiana: Mike Braun
Braun, who is now running for Indiana governor, announced on January 2, 2021, that he was part of a group of Republican senators who would object to the congressional count of “disputed states” won by Biden and would instead push Congress to authorize an “emergency 10-day audit” of the election in those states. He reiterated in a social media post in the early afternoon of January 6, 2021, that he planned to object that day, writing that “I will object today and support an emergency audit into irregularities in the 2020 election.”
After a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, though, Braun changed his mind and decided not to object. He wrote on social media late that night: “Today’s events changed things drastically. Though I will continue to push for a thorough investigation into the election irregularities many Hoosiers are concerned with as my objection was intended, I have withdrawn that objection and will vote to get this ugly day behind us.” He told reporters, “Whatever point you made before, that should suffice.”
Asked during a televised debate on Wednesday whether he believes Trump lost the 2020 election, Braun said, “I believe that election had irregularities to it, I think they were investigated; certified the vote, and we’re talking about 2024.” When the moderator again asked Braun if he believes Trump lost in 2020, Braun said, “I do.”
Braun was not asked during the debate if he thought Trump’s defeat was legitimate, and his office did not respond to a previous CNN request to comment on whether he thinks Biden was the legitimate winner. His Democratic opponent is Jennifer McCormick, a former Superintendent of Public Instruction in the state.
Missouri: Mike Kehoe
Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, now the Republican nominee for Missouri governor, rejected the legitimacy of Biden’s victory when asked for comment for this article in July.
In an emailed statement, Kehoe’s campaign said the televised debate between Biden and Trump the week prior made clear that “Joe Biden has no business being president.” The campaign then continued: “He is illegitimate in the eyes of the voters, of his party, and of the world. He should have never stepped foot in the Oval Office, and in November, we are going to right that wrong by overwhelmingly reelecting Donald Trump.”
Kehoe’s Democratic opponent is state Rep. Crystal Quade, the state House minority leader.
Montana: Greg Gianforte
Gov. Greg Gianforte has served as governor of Montana since early 2021. As a member of the US House of Representatives in December 2020, he was one of 126 House Republicans who signed on to a legal brief in support of a Texas-led lawsuit that asked the Supreme Court to overturn Biden’s victory by invalidating his wins in four swing states.
Gianforte provided this comment to Lee Newspapers at the time: “To protect the integrity of the 2020 elections and elections to come, I encourage the Supreme Court to accept Texas’ lawsuit and answer the important questions that have been put forward.”
Gianforte’s office did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment this year on his current views on the legitimacy of Biden’s victory. His Democratic opponent is Ryan Busse, a former executive at a gun manufacturer who has become a critic of the firearms industry.
North Carolina: Mark Robinson
Robinson, now the Republican nominee for governor, has explicitly rejected the legitimacy of Biden’s victory.
Robinson falsely claimed in a 2021 speech at a church that Biden “stole the election,” according to audio obtained by The News & Observer newspaper. And in Robinson’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2022, he said he didn’t believe Biden’s 2020 vote total: “I don’t care what you tell me, 83 thousand people [sic] did not vote for Joe Biden. I don’t think 83 million people know who Joe Biden is.” (Biden received about 81.3 million votes nationwide, so Robinson was misstating the total while denying it.)
Asked by CNN in March 2024 whether Robinson accepts that Biden was the legitimate winner in 2020, Robinson’s campaign provided a response but did not answer the question – instead changing the subject to Democrats who have disputed the legitimacy of other elections.
Robinson’s Democratic opponent is state Attorney General Josh Stein.
West Virginia: Patrick Morrisey
In December 2020, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey joined the Texas-led lawsuit that asked the Supreme Court to overturn Biden’s victory.
Morrisey, now the Republican nominee for governor, said in a statement at the time: “Many Americans and West Virginians have seen their confidence in the electoral system undermined as they watch one report after another outlining the many, many problems with the 2020 elections. That must change.” He also claimed that states had taken “many irregular, highly problematic and unconstitutional actions” during the 2020 elections.
The Associated Press reported in May 2023 that, in a recent interview, Morrisey had repeated his previous claims about “significant irregularities” in 2020 elections; the AP also reported that Morrisey had “refused to say definitively whether he believes Biden’s victory was fraudulent,” instead merely stating the fact that Biden is the current president.
Morrisey’s office and campaign did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment on the subject this year. His Democratic opponent is Huntington Mayor Steve Williams.
Candidates for the US Senate
There are 34 races for US senator this year, including two in Nebraska. At least 14 of the Republican nominees have supported efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in 2020 or denied or questioned the legitimacy of that victory.
CNN could not find any public statements on the legitimacy of Biden’s victory from the Republican candidates in four states: Tim Sheehy of Montana and longshot candidates in Democratic-dominated Delaware, Connecticut and Hawaii. Their campaigns did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.
Arizona: Kari Lake
Lake, a former anchor at the local Fox television station in Phoenix, put lies about the 2020 election at the forefront of her unsuccessful campaign for Arizona governor in 2022. And she continued to push false election claims after her defeat.
During Lake’s gubernatorial campaign, she falsely claimed the 2020 election was “stolen” and called it “disqualifying” that a rival in the Republican primary wouldn’t say the same. She also falsely claimed Biden didn’t receive the 81 million votes he indeed received; falsely claimed Trump won Arizona in 2020, though he lost by more than 10,000 votes; said she would not have certified Biden’s 2020 victory in Arizona if she had been governor at the time; and demanded the decertification of Biden’s victories in Arizona and Wisconsin, though that was a legal impossibility.
Lake also baselessly advocated the imprisonment of Katie Hobbs, who was Arizona’s election chief during the 2020 election and went on to defeat Lake in the 2022 race for governor. (After that 2022 race was marred by Election Day technical problems in the state’s most populous county, Lake baselessly called that race “rigged,” unsuccessfully challenged it in court and proclaimed herself the real winner.)
In the months before Lake launched her Senate campaign in 2023, she posted on social media that “the 2020 Election Results were garbage,” wrote “81 Million Votes, My Ass,” and called to “decertify 2020.” While she has not emphasized election denial during the Senate campaign, she has not abandoned it either; she repeated her “81 million votes, my ass” refrain on social media in March 2024.
Lake’s campaign did not respond to a CNN request for comment for this article. She is running against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego for the US Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who was elected as a Democrat and then became an independent.
Florida: Rick Scott
Sen. Rick Scott voted to object to the congressional count of Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania, though he voted in favor of counting Biden’s victory in Arizona. On January 6, 2021, before a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol that day, Scott issued a statement in which he argued that election rule changes made in Pennsylvania amid the Covid-19 pandemic violated the state’s law and constitution.
Scott acknowledged after January 6 that Biden legitimately won the election, which sets him apart from most of the others on this list. On January 8, 2021, Scott urged Trump to reconsider his decision to skip Biden’s inauguration, saying Trump should attend even though “I can imagine losing an election is very hard.” Scott said in a Fox News interview in February 2021 that Biden “absolutely” won fair and square.
Still, Scott is on the list because of his objection to Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania.
Asked for comment for this article, a Scott spokesperson pointed to his post-January 6 comments accepting Biden’s legitimacy. Scott’s Democratic opponent is former congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.
Indiana: Jim Banks
Indiana Rep. Jim Banks voted to object to the congressional count of Biden’s victories in Pennsylvania and Arizona. In the days prior to the count session that was held on January 6, 2021, Banks said he would be objecting because some states’ governors, election chiefs, judges and other officials made changes to election rules (amid the Covid-19 pandemic) without the approval of state legislatures.
Banks also joined 125 other House Republicans in affixing his name to an amicus brief in support of the Texas-led lawsuit that sought to get the Supreme Court to overturn Biden’s victory.
Banks said on Fox News in May 2021 that he stood by his decisions. He said he continued to have “serious concerns about how the election in November was carried out,” though he noted that he had not gone so far as to call it “stolen.”
Banks’ office did not respond to a CNN request for comment for this article. He is running against Democrat Valerie McCray, a psychologist, for the Senate seat being vacated by Braun.
Maine: Demi Kouzounas
Demi Kouzounas, a dentist and Army veteran who was chair of the Maine Republican Party at the time of the 2020 election, questioned the legitimacy of Biden’s victory in a November 2020 written statement five days after media outlets unofficially projected that Biden had won.
Kouzounas wrote that, along with the chair of the New Hampshire GOP and other Americans, she was “deeply concerned with the anomalies” in unspecified key states “and the possibility of election fraud, and will continue to full heartedly support our President until all counting and litigation concludes. As far as we are concerned, President Trump is still our President until proven otherwise.” She wrote, “We will not rest until the truth about the 2020 election is revealed and we return trust to American elections.”
As previously reported by Beacon, a Maine progressive website, Kouzounas also baselessly claimed on local talk radio after the election that China had deliberately unleashed Covid-19 on the US to hurt Trump’s chances of winning.
Kouzounas’ campaign did not respond to a CNN request for comment for this article. She is challenging incumbent Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
Minnesota: Royce White
Royce White, a former college basketball star, participated in a game in the Big3 league in 2023 with the words “TRUMP WON!” scrawled on the side of his head. He posted the image and repeated the words “Trump Won!” in a subsequent social media post.
White did not respond to requests for comment for this article. He is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
Missouri: Josh Hawley
In early December 2020, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley applauded the Texas-led lawsuit that sought to get the Supreme Court to overturn Biden’s victory. Then, late that month, Hawley became the first senator to announce he would object to the congressional count of Biden electoral votes the following week.
Hawley followed through, voting to object to counting Biden’s victories in Pennsylvania and Arizona – after making a controversial raised-fist gesture toward pro-Trump demonstrators as he walked into the Capitol for the session on January 6, 2021, before the start of the riot that day. Hawley was the senator who brought the Pennsylvania objection, joining a Pennsylvania member of the House.
Hawley said in his late-December 2020 statement that he was objecting because, he claimed, states including Pennsylvania had not followed their election laws and because, he claimed, technology companies had interfered in the election. He also proposed a congressional investigation of “potential fraud and election irregularities.”
Both before and after the count session, Hawley insisted he wasn’t trying to overturn the election by objecting. But in a Fox News interview two days before the session, he suggested that Trump could possibly remain president beyond the looming Biden inauguration day because of the count session later that week.
Hawley was defiant after the session, which was interrupted by a pro-Trump mob storming the Capitol. He told media outlets the next day: “I will never apologize for giving voice to the millions of Missourians and Americans who have concerns about the integrity of our elections.” In mid-2022, when CNN’s Manu Raju asked Hawley if he regrets the raised-fist gesture he made prior to the riot, he said: “I don’t regret anything I did on that day.”
Hawley’s office did not respond to a CNN request for comment for this article. His Democratic opponent is attorney and Marine veteran Lucas Kunce.
Nevada: Sam Brown
Sam Brown, a retired Army captain, won the Republican nomination for a Nevada US Senate seat in June. During Brown’s previous Senate campaign, an unsuccessful run in the 2022 midterms, Brown said there were “a lot of questions” about Biden’s victory in Nevada in 2020, expressed support for “audits” of the election results months after Biden was inaugurated, and he ran an ad attacking his main Republican primary opponent for supposedly having failed to do more to help challenge Trump’s 2020 defeat in Nevada.
Brown said in an August 2021 radio interview: “I share a major concern about election integrity. And in a sense that, you know, folks have to be able to trust results, right? And the results told us this last election cycle that Joe Biden won Nevada. The problem we’ve got is there’s a lot of questions out there. And there’s an effort to add an opaque view at what’s really happened.”
Later in the interview, Brown praised people who were “pursuing the truth of exactly what happened” and appeared to call for judges to “mandate” election audits. He said, “And so I’m all about us digging in and finding out exactly what happened. My fear is, is that unless we have the judicial branch backing up these audits, we’re not going to get the clear answers that we need in order to be able to identify what’s going forward.”
Brown ran an ad in 2022 that criticized Adam Laxalt, the eventual winner of that primary, for supposedly waiting too long to file 2020 “voter fraud lawsuits,” with the ad’s narrator claiming Laxalt had let down Trump supporters. Brown delivered a similar attack on Laxalt at a 2022 debate.
Brown’s 2024 campaign noted Saturday, however, that when Brown was asked by CNN late in the 2022 primary what he thought happened in the 2020 election, he responded, “Joe Biden won. He won across the country and is sitting in the White House as a result of that. People want to kind of go back and litigate that. But we’ve got to focus on moving forward.”
Brown is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen.
Ohio: Bernie Moreno
In late 2020, businessman Bernie Moreno made social media posts in which he acknowledged Biden’s election victory, criticized Trump for making “claims of a fraudulent election without proof,” and even tried to debunk those false claims.
But when Moreno was a candidate in a Republican primary for a US Senate seat in Ohio in late 2021, he turned to election denialism himself – releasing a television ad in which he said straight to the camera, “President Trump says the election was stolen, and he’s right.”
Moreno dropped out of that competitive primary in early 2022 after a meeting with Trump. In March 2024, after winning the Republican nomination for Ohio’s other US Senate seat, he refused to answer directly when asked by CNN whether the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, saying the subject was not a priority for the people of Ohio.
Then, speaking to CNN’s Raju in August 2024, Moreno said it was “true” that the 2020 election was “rigged.” He refused to answer directly when asked if Biden was legitimately elected, dodging by saying Biden is “legitimately the worst president of the United States.”
Moreno’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this article. He is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
Pennsylvania: Dave McCormick
During his Senate campaign in Pennsylvania this year, Dave McCormick, a former hedge fund chief executive and Treasury Department official, has said the 2020 election “wasn’t stolen.” He said the same in a Wall Street Journal interview last year. Campaign spokesperson Elizabeth Gregory told CNN this July: “As Dave has said numerous times, he believes Biden won the 2020 election.”
But McCormick is included in this article because of what he said and didn’t say about the 2020 election on various occasions before this year.
While running unsuccessfully in 2022 for the Republican nomination for Pennsylvania’s other Senate seat, McCormick refused to respond directly when repeatedly asked in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek whether he thought the election was stolen; he claimed there were “all sorts of election irregularities” in Pennsylvania and “certainly there were lots of doubts” in the state. He made similarly evasive claims about “election irregularities” in other 2022 comments. When repeatedly asked by NBC10 Philadelphia that year whether he acknowledged that Trump had lost Pennsylvania and the general election in 2020, McCormick refused to respond directly and eventually said, “Joe Biden is the president.”
McCormick wrote in a 2023 book that, during the 2022 primary, he had rejected Trump’s direct request to declare that the 2020 election was stolen. (Soon after that, Trump endorsed McCormick opponent Mehmet Oz.) But on at least one occasion in 2023, McCormick continued to cast doubt on the integrity of the 2020 vote; The Philadelphia Inquirer quoted him as saying in a 2023 interview: “I never said the election was stolen during the campaign. I said, ‘I understand the frustration.’ There was lots of things that happened in 2020 that should sway our confidence: fraudulent activities at the ballots … ballots that were lost that came up in Philadelphia. … We’ve got an electoral process in Pennsylvania and, I suspect around the country, that is really, really problematic.”
McCormick is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey.
Rhode Island: Patricia Morgan
Rhode Island state Rep. Patricia Morgan made numerous false claims about the 2020 presidential election on social media in 2020 and 2021.
In December 2020, for example, Morgan posted this: “It is not ok to rob voters of their just victory by overwhelming the election with illegitimate ballots and then claiming that to search for the fraud or require a new election would disenfranchise those same voters. It’s nonsensical…but that’s the Democrats argument.”
Among her other false statements, Morgan baselessly called the election “not legitimate,” wrongly accused Democrats of having “cheated,” parroted others’ false claims that the election was stolen and that the “election fraud happened almost everywhere,” amplified debunked conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines, falsely said “there was enough voter fraud to put the election into question,” and falsely said the late-2020 hearings held by Republican legislators in some swing states Biden won were “uncovering mountains of outrageous examples of vote dumping, fraudulent votes and attempted coverups.”
She told The Providence Journal in December 2020: “Of course, there was election fraud, aided by politicians who exponentially increased the number of mail-in ballots without adequate preparation.”
Morgan and her campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this article. She is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.
Tennessee: Marsha Blackburn
Two weeks after Election Day in November 2020, and 10 days after media outlets had unofficially projected Biden as the winner, Sen. Marsha Blackburn wrote on social media that “this election is far from over.” In December 2020, Blackburn applauded Tennessee’s attorney general for signing on to the Texas-led lawsuit that asked the Supreme Court to overturn Biden’s victory.
On January 2, 2021, Blackburn announced on social media that she and fellow Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty “will stand against tainted electoral results from the recent Presidential election” and oppose the congressional count of Biden’s victory. She also wrote that day, “I cannot in good conscience turn a blind eye to the countless allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.” She was part of a group of Republican senators who called for Congress to approve an “emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states”; she said on Fox News on January 4, 2021 that she wanted to send “this issue” back to elected officials in state governments.
On the morning of January 6, 2021, Blackburn wrote on social media, “The fight for election integrity starts right now.” After the riot, though, she abandoned her objection plans and voted to count Biden’s electoral votes.
Blackburn’s campaign did not respond to a request to comment on whether she thinks Biden was the legitimate winner. Her Democratic opponent is state Rep. Gloria Johnson.
Texas: Ted Cruz
Sen. Ted Cruz, a key figure in the effort to overturn Biden’s victory, voted to object to the congressional count of Biden’s wins in Pennsylvania and Arizona. Cruz was the senator who brought the objection to counting Arizona’s electoral votes, joining an Arizona member of the House.
Cruz said in a January 6, 2021 speech that this objection was “broader” than just Arizona.
Rather, he said, he wanted Congress to authorize a commission to conduct “a 10-day emergency audit” of the election in “all six of the contested states.” Cruz had promoted this “audit” plan in the days prior, saying further investigation was needed in light of “unprecedented allegations of voter fraud.”
When Cruz was asked on ABC in 2022 whether he believed Biden legitimately won the election, he would not answer directly. When pressed, he responded, “So listen: Biden is the president today. There’s a lot of folks in the media … that try to, any time a Republican is in front of a TV camera, try to say, ‘The election was fair and square and legitimate.’” (He went on to complain that journalists supposedly don’t challenge Democrats who have disputed the legitimacy of other elections.) In a televised interview on CNN in May 2024, Cruz said, baselessly, that “I think there was significant voter fraud in 2020.”
Cruz’s campaign did not respond to a CNN request to comment for this article on whether he thinks Biden was the legitimate winner. His Democratic opponent is Rep. Colin Allred.
Virginia: Hung Cao
When Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain, was a candidate for the House of Representatives in 2022, he was asked by Virginia news outlet Loudoun Now whether Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Cao responded by baselessly casting doubt on the legitimacy of Biden’s vote total.
“Again, I’m going to tell you it’s very hard to understand how a person who hid in their basement the entire time got more votes than Barack Obama. It’s just very hard for me to understand that,” Cao said.
He had made similar comments at a fundraiser during that race, which he lost. And when asked at a 2022 debate whether he believed the 2020 election was “free, fair and untainted” and Biden was “duly elected,” Cao did not answer directly – instead stating the fact that “Joe Biden is the president of the United States” and saying that high food and gas prices proved it.
Cao provided another similar answer when CNN asked him in July 2024 whether he accepts that Biden was the legitimate winner. Declining to address the legitimacy of Biden’s victory, Cao said via email, “Joe Biden is the President, and he’s responsible for everything that has gone wrong in this country and around the world since he took office.” When pressed for a direct answer, he added only this: “Joe Biden was certified the winner of the election, as President Trump was in 2016.”
Cao is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine.
West Virginia: Jim Justice
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, now the Republican nominee for a US Senate seat, refused to answer directly in May 2024 when he was asked if he thought Biden had won legitimately in 2020. “What does it matter? I mean, what in the world does it matter?” Justice said in a press briefing that was covered by the Associated Press.
In December 2020, Justice said he “would be supportive” if the state attorney general – Patrick Morrisey, who is now running for governor – decided to join the Texas-led lawsuit seeking to overturn Biden’s victory, though Justice said the decision was up to Morrisey and that he didn’t know “the particulars” himself. Morrisey announced the same day that he would indeed join the suit.
Justice’s office and campaign did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
He is running for the US Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Joe Manchin, who was elected as a Democrat and is now an independent. Justice’s Democratic opponent is former Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott.
Candidates for secretary of state
Seven states are holding elections for secretary of state this year. In six of those states (not North Carolina), the secretary of state is the state’s top elections official. At least four of the Republican nominees in those six states – Denny Hoskins of Missouri, Dennis Linthicum of Oregon, H. Brooke Paige of Vermont and Kris Warner of West Virginia – have either explicitly rejected or refused to affirm the legitimacy of Biden’s victory.
CNN could not find any public statements on the legitimacy of Biden’s victory from the Republican nominees in the other two states, Washington’s Dale Whitaker and incumbent Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen. Neither responded to CNN’s requests for comment.
Missouri: Denny Hoskins
Missouri state Sen. Denny Hoskins explicitly rejected the legitimacy of Biden’s victory in his written statement upon winning the Republican nomination for secretary of state in August, saying that “we have to ensure that none of the electoral fraud that took place in 2020 and stole the election from President Trump happens here.”
In 2022, Hoskins urged people to watch “2000 Mules,” a right-wing commentator’s debunked film that wrongly alleged mass election fraud in 2020 involving ballot drop boxes. In 2023, he shared someone else’s social media post that wrongly claimed the 2020 election was “rigged” and added the words “yes, election fraud is real.”
Hoskins did not respond to a request for comment for this article. His Democratic opponent is state Rep. Barbara Phifer.
Oregon: Dennis Linthicum
Oregon state Sen. Dennis Linthicum, now the party’s nominee for secretary of state, signed a December 2020 letter that urged the Oregon attorney general to support the Texas-led lawsuit that sought to get the Supreme Court to overturn Biden’s victory.
Linthicum did not abandon his efforts to overturn the election after Biden was inaugurated in January 2021. Linthicum also signed an October 2021 letter, circulated among Republican state legislators around the country, that baselessly declared the 2020 election “corrupted,” demanded so-called forensic audits of the election in all 50 states, and pushed an impossible plan to quickly make Trump president again – saying that any state proven to have inaccurate 2020 results should “decertify its electors” and that, if such decertification resulted in Biden falling below the 270 electoral votes needed for victory, the House should decide on the “rightful” winner “by means of one vote per state.” (Conveniently, a majority of states at the time had Republican-majority House delegations.)
Linthicum has made a variety of baseless claims about mail-in voting in Oregon and is trying to eliminate mail-in voting in the state. In 2022, he was one of the plaintiffs in an unsuccessful lawsuit that asked the courts to forbid mail-in voting in Oregon; the lawsuit repeatedly invoked “2000 Mules,” the debunked film that wrongly alleged mass election fraud in 2020 involving ballot drop boxes.
Linthicum did not respond to a CNN request for comment for this article. His Democratic opponent is state Treasurer Tobias Read.
Vermont: H. Brooke Paige
H. Brooke Paige, a perennial longshot candidate in Vermont, falsely claimed on his Facebook page in January 2021 that the left “stole” the 2020 election through a “subversive plan” involving “stuffing the ballot box and corrupting the tabulation of the election results.” In another January 2021 post on Facebook, Paige claimed that “a majority of the population knows that their government has been taken over by unlawfully selected candidates who through fraudulent means and legal jiujitsu have seized control.”
Paige, who formerly owned a newsstand and coffee shop business in Philadelphia, ran unopposed for the 2024 Republican nomination for Vermont secretary of state, as he did in 2022. As in 2022, he declined in September to answer directly when asked by CNN if he thought Biden was legitimately elected.
He said he has no doubt that Biden had the sufficient number of Electoral College votes to be “rightfully installed” as president – but also said “the question is how much mischief” there was during the campaign to allow Biden to obtain those electoral votes. He criticized states’ 2020 changes to their election rules and raised uncorroborated claims of ballot fraud in Philadelphia and elsewhere.
“All manner of things – good, bad and ugly – went on, and nobody knows the depth of the …depravity that was involved in different parts of the election process,” he said. “We cannot comprehend all of the variations of things that happened to get to the result.”
Paige’s Democratic opponent is incumbent Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas.
West Virginia: Kris Warner
Kris Warner, a business professional who was appointed by the Trump administration to a position with the US Department of Agriculture, told media outlet West Virginia Watch in May that he wasn’t sure if the 2020 election was stolen or not.
He said he knows it wasn’t stolen in West Virginia, where his brother, Mac Warner, is secretary of state, but that “I don’t think that I’m qualified at this point to talk about what’s happened in other states and whether the election was stolen or not.”
Kris Warner, who is now the executive director of the West Virginia Economic Development Authority, didn’t respond to requests to comment for this article on whether he thinks Biden was the legitimate winner. His Democratic opponent is lawyer Thornton Cooper.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
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