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Tina Peters’ campaign for secretary of state in Colorado was based in large part on the Republican’s conspiracy theories. With this in mind, it was reassuring for the reality-based community to see Peters finish third in her GOP primary this week, ruling out the possibility that an election denier would soon oversee Colorado’s system of elections.
But for the conspiracy theorist, the results weren’t the final word. The Daily Beast noted that Peters, after losing, “did exactly what you would expect: She denied she lost, cried fraud, and vowed to keep fighting.”
A Denver Post report added, “Peters and her campaign baselessly claimed that the results of the election were ‘flipped’ and fraudulent, saying GOP polling results they had seen prior to the election showed Peters in the lead.”
For some, this probably seems a little amusing. An election denier who peddles weird conspiracy theories ran and lost, causing her to deny the election results and peddle a new, weird conspiracy theory.
But it’s less funny when others take related steps down the same road. The Nevada Independent reported:
Republican governor candidate Joey Gilbert, who has loudly and without evidence alleged massive voter fraud in Nevada’s 2022 primary election, requested a statewide recount of a race he lost to Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo by about 26,000 votes, according to state election officials.
Just so we’re clear, this race wasn't exactly a nail-biter: At this point in the vote tallies, Gilbert appears to have lost by about 11 percentage points.
But he’s alleging irregularities anyway.
I’m reminded anew of a Washington Post op-ed Doug Heye wrote last fall. At the time, Heye, a former Republican National Committee communications director and a former aide to then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, effectively delivered a warning to his party about its election conspiracy theories.
As Heye saw it, Republicans seemed unaware of an inconvenient fact: The GOP’s outlandish post-2020 “voter fraud” allegations could very easily be applied to Republican primaries in 2022.
Eight months later, as some in the GOP join Donald Trump in rejecting election results they don’t like, Heye’s warning appears prescient.
Republicans have spent nearly two years pushing the Big Lie, predicated on the idea that the party's candidates don't have to accept election results when they don't like voters' judgment. It shouldn't come as too big of a surprise to see some in the party apply the same principles to GOP primaries.