WASHINGTON — Today, the DLCC is launching its Threats to Democracy website, a database that features a list of Republican candidates and lawmakers who have spread dangerous election conspiracies, attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election, or have otherwise threatened our democracy. The DLCC identified at least 23 Republican candidates for Arizona’s state legislature on the ballot in the November midterms who fit that criteria. Nationally, the committee has found at least 1,007 Republican state legislators and candidates are complicit in the ongoing attacks on our democracy. Arizona is a crucial state for the path to the presidency. Arizonans can’t trust MAGA Republicans to protect their sacred right to vote.
“Make no mistake, state legislatures are on the front lines of the battle to protect fair and free elections,” said DLCC executive director Heather Williams. “Arizona election deniers and MAGA candidates want to control their state legislature so they can override voters and decide the outcome of future elections. The surest way to protect democracy and beat back the MAGA movement in 2022 is to elect Democrats in Arizona and to statehouses all across the country.”
Here are just a few examples from Arizona:
- Almost a year after the 2020 presidential election, Senator Wendy Rogers, an Oathkeeper, published an open letter calling for a 50-state audit of the 2020 election and possible decertification of the results, which gained more than 100 signatures from state legislators across the country.
- As revealed by the Jan 6th committee, Arizona is also one of the many states where state legislators were targeted by Trump’s legal team and others, including Ginni Thomas, in an attempt to overturn the election. Former Representative Anthony Kern, who was in DC on January 6th, was slated to be one of the false electors from Arizona if this plot had moved ahead.
- LD-10 Senate candidate David Farnsworth defeated sitting House Speaker Rusty Bowers after joining Senator Kelly Townsend’s open letter citing baseless claims of irregularities, calling on Congress to accept a slate of false electors for Donald Trump, and claiming he was “confident” the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee was the first and only entity committed to identifying, tracking, and condemning the hundreds of Republican state lawmakers who aided and abetted Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Its current Threats to Democracy website holds the most comprehensive account of state legislators and state legislative candidates complicit in the ongoing attack on our democracy. With more than 7,300 state legislative seats, the research for this project is ongoing, and the list continues to grow. The DLCC research team is actively soliciting tips for additional information at [email protected].
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