Individuals at Trump’s Jan. 6 rally push false election claims in Virginia legislative campaigns

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Most Republican candidates working for the Virginia legislature this yr are centering their pitches to voters on points corresponding to training, the price of dwelling and gun rights.

But for a small phase of contenders, former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a rigged 2020 election have remained an essential marketing campaign promoting level heading into Tuesday’s major.

“There’s still an underlying distrust of the election process by Republicans,” mentioned state Sen. Amanda Chase, who’s in a three-way major for a GOP-leaning seat in suburban Richmond.

Chase has persistently repeated Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, as soon as known as for martial legislation to overturn the outcomes and was censured by the state Senate for telling falsehoods and voicing assist for individuals who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

She is one in all no less than six Republican candidates for the General Assembly who attended Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally or the next march to the Capitol. All say they didn’t enter the constructing in the course of the riot, and none has been charged with a criminal offense. Another GOP candidate is a lawyer who labored on Trump’s makes an attempt to reverse his loss in Wisconsin, a end result that was affirmed in recounts and audits.

Nearly three years after Democrat Joe Biden received the White House, the Virginia candidates’ messaging reveals the sturdiness amongst Republicans of Trump’s claims, one thing that’s been mirrored in earlier election cycles and echoed in polling. In interviews, current appearances or social media posts, these candidates who had been in Washington on Jan. 6 have both defended claims that the election was rigged, worn their attendance as a badge of honor or pledged to pursue main adjustments to Virginia voting legal guidelines if elected.

Virginia is among the few states that holds its state legislative races in odd years. Every seat is on the poll in a yr the place management of the General Assembly, which is cut up between Democrats and Republicans, is up for grabs.

In final yr’s midterms, candidates who rejected the 2020 outcomes fared poorly, with deniers dropping each bid for statewide workplace within the swing states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Virginia, a quasi-swing state with its uncommon off-year election cycle, is carefully watched for hints of voter sentiment heading into the next yr’s midterm or presidential cycle. How a number of the Jan. 6 attendees fare this yr might provide additional perception on voters’ willingness to again candidates who proceed to embrace the false claims by Trump, who misplaced the state to Biden in 2020 by about 10 share factors.

Most of the Virginia statehouse candidates who attended the Jan. 6 rally or march mentioned that if Republicans can win majorities in each chambers, they’d push to roll again voting adjustments enacted by Democrats. They expanded entry to early voting and absentee ballots, and eradicated the earlier voter ID requirement.

John McGuire, a former Navy SEAL and present House of Delegates member, has mentioned in interviews that he needs to vary election legal guidelines as a way to “turn Virginia red again.”

“If we can lock arms and get the House, get the Senate, change the election laws, get rid of election season, get a voter ID, ban these drop boxes that are not secure, we could have a red state that could be in play for 2024,” he mentioned in an April interview on the John Fredericks radio present.

To be clear, the 2020 election was not stolen from Trump, who’s dominating early major polls for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024. Multiple opinions, recounts and audits within the battleground states the place Trump contested his loss validated Biden’s victory. Even Trump’s former lawyer common mentioned there was no proof of widespread fraud within the 2020 election, and dozens of judges, together with a number of nominated by Trump, rejected his claims. An Associated Press evaluate of each potential case of voter fraud within the six battleground states disputed by Trump discovered no proof of widespread fraud.

None of the six Virginia legislative candidates is working in any of the extremely aggressive swing districts which might be anticipated to assist decide get together management within the fall. In all however one case, the winner of the Republican nomination is sort of assured of successful the seat.

McGuire has already received a party-run Senate nomination contest in a closely Republican district after receiving Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s endorsement. Another, former Chase aide and House candidate Jody Pyles, lately misplaced his bid for the GOP nomination to an incumbent in a unique party-run course of. Neither responded to requests for remark.

Philip Hamilton, a longshot candidate with no major opponent in a closely Democratic Senate district that features Charlottesville, mentioned he questions whether or not Biden was legitimately elected however isn’t emphasizing the problem in his marketing campaign.

In addition to Chase, the opposite Jan. 6 members on Tuesday’s poll are present state delegates Dave LaRock and Marie March.

LaRock didn’t comply with an interview request from the AP however responded to questions by e-mail. He has made 2020 a central a part of this yr’s marketing campaign as he competes with seven different Republicans for the get together’s nomination in a deep purple Shenandoah Valley-area Senate seat.

“I have no regrets about participating in the peaceful, political free-speech rallies on January 6. I spoke out against the violence and lawbreaking as soon as I learned of it through news reports,” he mentioned, including that individuals who didn’t break the legislation “had every right to be there.”

Former Trump nationwide safety adviser Michael Flynn, who at one level recommended that Trump might invoke the army to cease Biden from taking workplace, endorsed LaRock final month. He lauded LaRock for his “faithfulness to the cause” when LaRock wrote a letter asking then-Vice President Mike Pence to delay the certification of Virginia’s presidential electors within the 2020 race.

March, who didn’t reply to requests for remark, instructed a crowd about her Jan. 6 participation in April, mentioning at a marketing campaign occasion that eating places she owned had been “attacked relentlessly” as a result of she was there.

March faces a major contest in opposition to one other delegate, Wren Williams in one of many state’s few incumbent-on-incumbent matchups, a results of new district maps created by redistricting.

Williams, who labored on Trump’s Wisconsin authorized group, mentioned in an interview that the 2020 election was “absolutely rigged” however that liberals are those preserving the problem entrance and middle. Biden’s victory in Wisconsin and the shortage of any widespread fraud has been affirmed by recounts, a nonpartisan audit and even a partisan investigation ordered by legislative Republicans.

“I feel like the left is the one more interested in 2020 and the 2020 election and Jan. 6 because they inevitably have very little record to run on with Joe Biden’s administration and the wreckage and the damage that they’ve done to America over the last few years,” Williams mentioned.

The six candidates who had been in Washington on Jan. 6 are amongst an extended listing of Republicans working for workplace in Virginia who’ve pushed false claims in regards to the 2020 election, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee mentioned in a brand new analysis report.

The group’s analysis counts 16 whole candidates in Virginia’s 2023 state legislative races who’ve engaged in what the DLCC calls “election denial or other anti-democratic activity.”

Among them are candidates who attended native “Stop the Steal” rallies after the 2020 election, shared false claims of voter fraud or promoted the debunked movie “2,000 Mules.”

Heather Williams, interim president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, mentioned these sorts of candidates “are an ongoing threat to our democracy.”

“State legislatures are the most impactful level of the ballot when it comes to our elections and voting rights, and with these extreme candidates and lawmakers running, the stakes couldn’t be higher this cycle,” she mentioned.

Rich Anderson, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, pushed again on that argument. He mentioned in an interview that whereas he thinks most GOP candidates are wanting ahead, candidates ought to have the license to freely talk about their beliefs on any concern.

America is a “sturdy” nation that has been by “lots worse than somebody who may feel concerns over the process of the 2020 election and its ultimate outcome,” he mentioned.

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Swenson reported from New York.

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