The 2022 midterm elections have inspired worries about a variety of far-right Republican candidates running for major offices. But while many of the high-profile races have attracted extensive national attention, like election denier Kari Lake running for Arizona governor and TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz running for Senate in Pennsylvania, a lot of lesser-known Republican candidates with dangerous and extreme beliefs are running for various offices who have received less attention — many of whom are underdogs in their races, but some of whom have a good chance of winning.
Here are seven far-right Republicans whose races may not be on your radar.
Jim Brown
A candidate for Montana Supreme Court, Jim Brown has headed up a right-wing dark money group known as American Tradition Partnership, a key beneficiary of federal court decisions that have stripped the power of Congress to regulate campaign finance. ATP has been mired in bizarre scandals, including a criminal investigation stemming from documents from the group that ended up in a meth house. The Montana Supreme Court is important because despite Montana's status as a red state, it has an extremely progressive constitution with aggressive privacy protections that have been used to uphold abortion rights; Republican-aligned judges elected to the court could work to erode those rights.
Tina Forte
The candidate running against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has gotten little attention because the seat is expected to remain solidly Democratic, but Tina Forte has been provoking controversy throughout her campaign. A QAnon supporter who has promoted conspiracy theories Democrats engage in Satanic child cannibalism and attended the January 6 Trump rally that immediately proceeded the Capitol attack, Forte has also come under scrutiny for a drug bust that occurred at her family's beverage distribution warehouse in the Bronx.
Sigal Chattah
The GOP's nominee for attorney general of Nevada, polls suggest that Sigal Chattah, who falsely claims to be the first Israeli-American to run for a row office in the United States, could be carried over the finish line if Republicans win the more prominent elections for Senate and governor. However, Chattah has triggered an explosion of outrage after she called for Democratic incumbent Aaron Ford, who is Black, to be hanged. She has insisted this comment was not racist and was only "tongue-in-cheek."
Rachel Hamm
Republicans are unlikely to win the secretary of state's office in the heavily Democratic state of California, but their candidate for that election, Rachel Hamm, has provoked controversy in her quest to do so. Another QAnon believer endorsed by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and far-right former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Hamm and her supporters claim she is on a quest to rid the world of Satanism and witchcraft; she has even claimed that devil-worshippers have performed occult sacrifices outside of her house, and that her activism inspired people in her neighborhood to murder a witch.
Jo Rae Perkins
Oregon is unusual in that Republicans actually nominated a QAnon activist for Senate not once, but twice. This year, Jo Rae Perkins is taking another shot after her defeat in 2020. She has gone so far as to sign a QAnon pledge, in which she swore to be one the Q's "digital soldiers." In her last election, her campaign officials actually scrubbed her mentions of QAnon from the internet to protect her — and she complained to reporters that she was "bummed" they did so.
Michael Peroutka
The Republican candidate for attorney general of Maryland, Michael Peroutka is one of the most incendiary candidates Republicans have on offer anywhere around the country. In addition to claiming that abortion is always murder, Peroutka is a former board member of the pro-Confederate League of the South, has said he's "still angry" Maryland did not secede in the Civil War, and that public schools are a Communist plot to "transform America away from a Christian worldview."
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Amy Loudenbeck
Few people have paid much attention to the Wisconsin secretary of state election, largely because unlike in most states, the secretary of state in Wisconsin does not manage elections — instead, it's a relatively apolitical state recordkeeping office. However, what makes state Rep. Amy Loudenbeck's run for secretary of state against Democratic incumbent Doug La Follette dangerous isn't so much her own views, but what the Wisconsin GOP could do if she is elected. Republicans have been introducing bills that would dissolve the state's bipartisan Election Commission — and if a Republican is elected to the secretary of state's office, the GOP would be able to transfer sole power over elections in the state back to that office, making this effectively an election where the powers of the office could be determined by who wins it.
