“Real Time” host Bill Maher has been warning that if enough far-right “Stop the Steal” election deniers are victorious in the 2022 midterms and Donald Trump is the GOP’s next presidential nominee, he would have an easier time pulling off a “coup” in 2024 than he did in 2020. Trump, Maher warns, could lose the popular vote in key swing states in 2024, but may have MAGA allies in state governments who would try to give the electoral votes to Trump anyway.
In a listicle published on Mother Jones’ website as well as in their November/December 2022 print edition, Jeremy Schulman lists five Republican midterms candidates who have been “sympathetic to Trump’s election fraud claims,” and who he believes could help Trump steal the 2024 election if they win on November 8 and Trump is the GOP’s next presidential nominee. The candidates are: (1) Doug Mastriano, the GOP gubernatorial nominee in Pennsylvania, (2) Mark Finchem, who is running for Arizona secretary of state, (3) Justice Brian Zahra, who is running for another term on the Michigan State Supreme Court, (4) Matthew DePerno, who is running for Michigan attorney general, and (5) Jeanne Herman, who is running for another term as county commissioner in Washoe County, Nevada.
“Like Finchem, Mastriano was at Trump’s January 6 rally but apparently didn’t enter the Capitol,” Schulman explains. “Prior to this year’s GOP primary, Democrats ran ads boosting Mastriano, thinking he’d be easy to beat in November. If he wins, they’ll really regret it. Mastriano has pledged to revoke the state’s contracts with ‘compromised voting machine companies’ and eliminate universal mail-in voting. He’d also get to pick the secretary of state, who will certify results in 2024.”
In Arizona, Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and Finchem have both been campaigning on the Big Lie.
Schulman warns, “Finchem, a state representative, did everything he could to reverse (Joe) Biden’s victory, including falsely telling the Department of Homeland Security that an Arizona House committee had uncovered evidence of voting machine ‘irregularities’ and had ‘probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed.’ He was scheduled to speak at Trump’s January 6, (2021) rally, though he didn’t enter the Capitol. If elected secretary of state, Finchem will oversee elections and certify the results.”
Michigan Supreme Court Justice Zahra is running for reelection, and Schulman fears that he could be sympathetic to Trump in 2024.
“Michigan’s high court narrowly voted to throw out a lawsuit seeking to undo Biden’s victory,” Schulman recalls. “Zahra — one of three dissenting Republicans — didn’t say how he might have ruled.”
Schulman notes that DePerno “helped turn a minor vote-counting error in rural Antrim County into a major piece of the conspiracy theories surrounding Dominion voting machines.”
“If elected,” Schulman writes, “he’s promised to ‘prosecute the people who corrupted the 2020 election’ — including Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state.”
Herman is running for reelection as Washoe County commissioner in Nevada, and Schulman clearly doesn’t trust her to do the right thing in 2024 if she is reelected.
“In Nevada, county commissioners approve election results, and Herman voted against certifying the 2020 outcome in the state’s second-largest county,” Schulman writes. “She has pushed to curtail the use of voting machines and wanted National Guard troops posted at election facilities. If she wins reelection this year, she might have company on the commission. Mike Clark, a Republican who won’t say whether he thinks Joe Biden was ‘duly elected,’ knocked off another incumbent in the primary.”