🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Representing a trend that has been persistent since the 2020 presidential election, during a Wednesday debate five Republican candidates for Minnesota governor were asked directly if they believed Joe Biden won the 2020 election, and all five combined said over 1,400 words talking around their answers before the topic was changed, according to The Associated Press.
During a discussion hosted by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, candidates were asked "did President Biden win a constitutional majority in the Electoral College?"
State Sen. Michelle Benson spoke about 240 words about the need for Republicans present to watch polls to ensure there is no fraud and criticizing Minnesota's Democratic secretary of state Steve Simon before Hewitt cut her off and asked: "Did President Biden win?"
"He was certified by Congress as having won the Electoral College," Benson said as her final answer.
"It is an important question and needs to be framed, I think, as I did. I expect it will be often asked and answered (or not) of many candidates in the year ahead," Hewitt tweeted after the debate.
The display from the Minnesota debate illustrates the struggle many experts see within the Republican party, forcing members to choose how loyal they want to be to former President Donald Trump, at the risk of angering Trump himself or losing his supporters.
"There's the problem," Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, replied to a colleague saying "we don't know" who won the election at a recent House Oversight Committee hearing. "Donald Trump refused to accept the results, and unfortunately we have one of the world's great political parties which has followed him off of the ledge of this electoral lunacy, and it's dangerous for democracy."
On NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, GOP Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas would only concede: "Joe Biden was sworn into office."
The hazy statements are one measure of election denialism within the Republican Party. Former President Donald Trump's lies about a stolen election have so taken hold among GOP voters that many of the party's candidates either believe them or fear the political repercussions of refuting Trump. That sets up a surreal dynamic for next year's elections, where the toughest question posed to GOP candidates — particularly in primaries — may be one with a one-word answer that they're reluctant to give.
Biden received more than 81 million votes to Trump's 74 million, according to the tally of the Federal Election Commission. The tightest margin was in Arizona, where Biden won by 10,457 votes. More important, he won 306 votes in the Electoral College, more than the 270 required to become president. Trump got 232.
Even a GOP-led "audit" of votes in Arizona's largest county came up with a Biden win. Dozens of state and federal courts, as well as the Trump administration's Justice Department, have dismissed claims of widespread voter fraud.
When The Associated Press set out to count every fraud claim in the states disputed by Trump, it found fewer than 475 potential cases — 15 hundredths of 1 percent of Biden's winning margin in those states.
And yet, many Republican candidates may be eying another number: A July Associated Press-NORC Poll found 66 percent of Republicans said Biden was not legitimately elected president. More than two-thirds of Americans overall said Biden was legitimately elected.
The doubt has been fueled by Trump, who has argued without evidence that the election was "rigged" and has urged his supporters to reject the outcome. He's set out to oust fellow Republicans who voted to certify the results.
Kansas' Marshall was among five senators who voted against certifying the electoral votes for Arizona and Pennsylvania in January, the day a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a violent effort to prevent the final step that sealed Biden's win.
While Marshall hangs his answer on process, other Republicans go further. Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs, who was part of a group of GOP congressmen who pushed false claims, recently answered a question from a colleague about who won by saying flatly, "We don't know."
There are some Republicans who clearly, without squirming, acknowledge Biden's win. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is among them, along with Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who was the GOP's 2012 presidential nominee, and Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, for instance. Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel uttered the words last month.
"Painfully, Joe Biden won the election, and it's very painful to watch. He's the president. We know that," McDaniel told Washington reporters at a breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor.
But it's clear not all Republicans know. In October, the second-ranking House Republican, Steve Scalise of Louisiana, repeatedly stopped short of disavowing Trump's claims of fraud, asserting without evidence that "a number" of states "didn't follow" their election laws.
On Friday, Josh Mandel, a GOP candidate for Senate in Ohio, called for more investigations into the vote in battleground states. "I think Trump won," he said in an interview on Hewitt's radio show.
The answers demonstrate the pressure for Republican primary candidates to appeal to, or at least not offend, the vocal Trump wing of the party, strategists say.
"In today's grim Republican Party, the was-the-election-legit question has become a litmus test for whether you are truly loyal to the Republican Trumpist tribe or not," said Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican strategist and Trump critic.
It took a while — that is, winning the Republican nomination for Virginia governor — for Glenn Youngkin to get there. In May, he said in an interview, "I mean, the reality is, and I have said this before, Joe Biden was legitimately elected our president."
But in February, though he stopped short of saying Biden "stole" the election, he was equally hesitant to declare Biden had been "legitimately elected," according to the nonpartisan political watchdog group Politifact.
Other candidates have moved in the other direction — away from the facts. In Ohio, where Republicans are vying for the nomination for an open Senate seat, candidate Bernie Moreno began airing an ad this week where he is quoted as saying, "President Trump says the election was stolen, and he's right."
Yet, just days after the election last year, Moreno urged conservatives on Twitter to "accept the results of the 140+ million votes cast," and tweeted a congratulatory note to Biden for a "hard fought victory."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
About the writer
A 2020 graduate of Kent State University with a Bachelor's degree in Journalism, Aaron has worked as an assigning editor ... Read more