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Republican candidates have questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, making claims of election fraud a key part of their campaign, and as many prepare to win in their conservative-leaning districts in the upcoming midterms, it seems the GOP strategy isn't going anywhere.
The Republican Party has long been focused on ballot security and voter fraud prevention, while Democrats have turned their efforts to expanding voter access. But GOP concerns reached a boiling point after former President Donald Trump and other top Republicans ceaselessly repeated unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was rigged or stolen.
Despite efforts from both Democrat and some Republican officials to deny those claims, the GOP's rhetoric has impacted voter confidence among Americans on both sides of the aisle. A poll conducted earlier this month by Axios/Ipsos found that 26 percent of Democrats and 39 percent of Republicans think that election fraud is likely to be the reason their party won't take control of Congress in November.
Other polls suggest that the proliferation of those beliefs is even higher. A Poynter analysis in June found that on average, 7 in 10 Republicans say President Joe Biden isn't the legitimate winner of the 2020 election.
M.V. Hood, the director of the University of Georgia's Survey Research Center, said those views haven't dissipated.
"I've asked that question a number of times on a number of surveys, and it really hasn't gone down," he told Newsweek. "I don't think that belief is going to go away. But on the other hand, I don't know that it's going to depress turnout among that group [of voters]."
Republican candidates have already begun to sow the seed that a midterm loss could only be the result of an illegitimate election.
On Sunday, Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, a staunch Trump supporter who has the former president's support, made headlines for refusing to say she would recognize a potential defeat.
Lake told CNN's Dana Bash, "I'm going to win the result and accept the result."
Gubernatorial candidates Ron DeSantis of Florida, Tudor Dixon of Michigan, Doug Mastriano of Pennsylvania and Greg Abbott of Texas have also refused to answer if they'll accept the results of the upcoming election.
On the other hand, other Republican candidates, like Dan Buloc in New Hampshire and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, have backtracked or softened on their election denial in hopes of winning on the general ballot. Either way, experts say the ramifications of the GOP's midterm strategy have already been set in motion, and predict those consequences will continue to play out in the months to come.
Philip Friedrich, a senior elections researcher at the Freedom House, told Newsweek that candidates who repeat these claims "contribute to decreasing trust in elections, and American democracy more generally, and will impact voter confidence for years to come."
"Election denialism presents an existential challenge for US democracy," Friedrich said.
Wendy Weiser, the vice president of the Brennan Center's Democracy Program, agreed, calling candidates who cast doubt over the U.S. elections system a "direct challenge" to electoral democracy in America.
"It's quite an aggressive tactic," she told Newsweek.
It's also a strategy that has been difficult for political experts and pundits to wrap their heads around. If candidates are claiming the midterm elections are fraudulent before the ballots are tallied, what happens when they win? How can a candidate cast doubt on the electoral system but recognize their own electoral victory without contradicting themselves?
"It's a snake eating its tail at this point," Sylvia Albert, Common Cause's director of voting and elections, told Newsweek.
The challenges to GOP's election denial tactic were unraveled in the Republican primaries, where GOP candidates are pitted against one another. As some moved onto the general ballot, others refused to accept the primary wins of members of their party.
"If you have multiple election deniers up for election, and one of them wins, the other one is still going to deny that the election actually took place," Albert said. She added, "The right has gotten themselves to somewhere they didn't expect."
Hood, who has spoken to a number of voters who believe Biden illegitimately won the White House in 2020, said it's been difficult to change their beliefs about supposed election fraud.
"There just doesn't seem to be anything one can say to convince someone who believes [in election fraud] that that wasn't the case," he said.
Weiser said it's not only the integrity of America's election system that's imperiled, it's also the lives of election workers nationwide, who have seen an uptick in threats and harassment.
"That in turn has sparked an alarming number of resignations across the country of experienced and competent election officials. The vast majority of people in the system are still public servants with integrity who are trying to make elections work," Weiser said, adding that the nation should bolster the safety resources available to election administration officials.
Hood said he encourages those who are questioning the electoral process to look into the safeguards in place and find ways to participate in it, potentially humanizing the realities Weiser described many poll workers face today
"The system is open in terms of people accessing information about what's going on," he said. "There are plenty of opportunities that one can undertake if you want to be observant about elections, or maybe even involved in—as a poll worker, for instance."
"Become part of the solution as opposed to just complaining about something," Hood said.
About the writer
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek senior reporter based in New York City. She has covered U.S. politics and culture extensively. ... Read more