A new report from The Washington Post compiled statements from Republicans currently running for office and determined that more than 230 of them have cast doubt on the 2024 election. Recent opinion polling shows that this conspiratorial rhetoric, along with falsehoods promoted by conservative media outlets like Fox News, is influencing Republican voters.
The Post described the disinformation campaign as a “pervasive effort within the GOP to undermine public trust in the vote ahead of Nov. 5.”
Many of the candidates promoted conspiracies about noncitizen voting, which is extremely rare (0.0001% of votes cast out of 23.5 million votes in the 2016 election, according to a report from the Brennan Center for Justice). House Republicans have pushed related legislation, even though noncitizen voting is already illegal, and it has been a hot topic of conversation on Fox News.
About half of the Republicans promoting election misinformation have referred to the ongoing criminal cases against Donald Trump as evidence of election interference, echoing his frequent protests, according to the Post’s report.
Republicans furthering election doubt also cited the decision by President Joe Biden to step down from the Democratic nomination, and falsely described the process as a coup or otherwise undemocratic. But Vice President Kamala Harris was running on the Democratic ticket alongside Biden during the Democratic primaries, and her nomination was voted on by delegates at the party convention.
Kari Lake, the Republican nominee in the Senate race in Arizona, was the top offender in the Post’s survey, with over 250 social media posts on the topic. Lake has pushed election conspiracies for years and has falsely claimed that she won her 2022 gubernatorial race against now-Gov. Katie Hobbs of Arizona.
Like Lake, current Florida Sen. Rick Scott has also promoted conspiracies while he runs to retain his seat. At a rally in Sarasota, Florida, Scott said that if Democrats win the election, “They won't have to commit fraud to win elections anymore because they'll just let every illegal immigrant vote.”
These candidates are following the path laid out by Trump, who has long pushed falsehoods about elections and continues to do so this year. His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, has recently done the same, arguing at a Pennsylvania campaign stop last week that Trump won the 2020 election. Trump did not.
An October poll by Civiqs for Daily Kos showed the effects of this. Among registered voters, 68% of Republicans said they were “very concerned” about election fraud, compared with 39% of voters overall.
The problem was more acute among those who were frequent (62%) or occasional (55%) viewers of Fox News compared with those who don’t watch the right-wing network (28%).
Election fraud is extremely rare, while voter suppression—something that the right engages in—is real and has an impact on election outcomes.
Republicans may be paying a price for indulging in election-fraud culture. In 2022, 60% of Americans saw at least one election denier on their ballot, according to an analysis by 538. At the same time, Democratic leaders like Biden were denouncing the practice.
Many of those candidates lost their races, and what had been predicted to be a “red wave” election for the Republicans delivered only a small majority that has been in a state of near-continual chaos.
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