Republicans in Colorado rejected two candidates who focused their campaign on election falsehoods. The result was a fresh reminder that allegiance to former President Donald Trump’s claims of massive fraud in the 2020 election is no guarantee of success among conservatives.
Tina Peters, the Mesa County official who rose to national fame after being prosecuted for participating in an intrusion into her own county’s electoral system, lost her primary for the Republican nomination for Colorado secretary of state.
Instead, Republicans selected Pam Anderson, a critic of Trump’s election lies and a former suburban Denver official well regarded among election professionals. She will now face the elections to the state Secretary of State, Democrat Jena Griswold.
One of Peters’s main Colorado allies, state Rep. Ron Hanks, lost his bid for the Senate to Joe O’Dea, a businessman who has repeatedly acknowledged that President Joe Biden legitimately won the US election. 2020.
That was a stark contrast to Hanks, who attended the Jan. 6 rally on Washington, doesn’t believe Biden is the rightful president and says he found new purpose in fighting voter fraud after 2020.
Greg Lopez, a former mayor of a Colorado suburb who entered the race after promising to pardon Peters if he became governor, lost the bid for that seat to Heidi Ganahl, a state university board member and a more traditional Republican. . She will face Democratic Governor Jared Polis in November.
In other states holding primaries on Tuesday, Trump’s efforts to rewrite the results of the last election appeared to fall short.
In Mississippi, Rep. Michael Guest, a Republican who shunned Trump by voting for an independent commission to investigate the Capitol storming, resisted a challenge from an Air Force pilot. And in Oklahoma, Senator James Lankford handily defeated an evangelical pastor in the primary who criticized him for not repeating Trump’s election lies.
Trump has had some victories this year, with candidates denying the outcome of the 2020 election and winning Republican primaries for election official positions in Alabama, Indiana, Nevada and New Mexico.
In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, who was on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, won the Republican nomination for governor, and if elected he would be in a position to nominate the secretary of state, who oversees elections.
In Utah, Senator Mike Lee won the Republican primary against two rivals who criticized him for his staunch loyalty to Trump and his uncompromising legislative style.
The primaries came at a time of political tension in the United States, just days after the Supreme Court struck down women’s constitutional right to obtain an abortion.
After that decision, abortion gained prominence in the campaign. O’Dea is an unusual Republican who defends most abortion rights. He is in favor of banning late-term abortions, but says the decision at earlier stages should be between “a mother and her god.”
In November, he will face Democratic Senator Michael Bennet, who won his closest vote in 2010 by lashing out at his Republican rival for opposing abortion rights.
Not all the votes were decisive rejections of electoral denialism. In Utah, two Republican critics of Trump failed to defeat Sen. Mike Lee, whom they accused of being too focused on currying favor with the former president and helping him try to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Also in Colorado, belligerent Rep. Lauren Boebert easily defeated her primary rival, moderate state Sen. Don Coram.
In New York, Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul, who took control of the state last fall when Andrew Cuomo resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal, easily prevailed over rivals from the party’s left and center.
He will face Rep. Lee Zeldin, who won the Republican nomination against a series of contenders including Andrew Giuliani, son of former New York mayor and Trump confidant Rudolph Giuliani. Trump did not endorse any candidate in that vote.
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