The most important recent long-term election result may have been Brad Raffensperger’s resounding victory in Georgia’s Republican primary for secretary of state.
In essence, the result was a vote by Georgians for non-partisan supervision of elections, an issue that gained saliency from the way state officials like Raffensperger resisted former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the popular 2020 vote in several key states.
Last week’s Georgia result marked the third straight defeat for one of the facts-denying Trump allies who have formed a fundraising combine to bolster their efforts to take control of the election machinery in more than a dozen states, including the likeliest 2024 battlegrounds.
The website of the America First Secretary of State Coalition lists more than a dozen conservative hopefuls, most of whom share Trump’s claims there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
These battles could have a significant impact on whether the 2024 election is conducted and counted fairly, since the secretary of state, in most states, supervises elections. Most are elected, though some are appointed by governors, as in Texas.
The biggest battles will come this November in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. In the sixth key state, Wisconsin, a bipartisan state election commission supervises elections.
Raffensperger, who resisted pressures including an hour-long phone call from Trump to reverse Georgia’s legitimate 2020 result, routed U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, one of the Republican lawmakers voting to overturn Biden’s Arizona and Pennsylvania victories.
Earlier, Trump allies lost secretary of state primaries in reliably Republican Idaho and Nebraska.
According to its website, the coalition’s goals are to raise funds and seek common objectives, including universal voter ID requirements, all paper ballots, elimination of mail-in ballots, single day voting and “aggressive voter roll clean-up.”
Here are the key upcoming state contests:
ARIZONA: The incumbent secretary of state, Democrat Katie Hobbs, is running for governor to succeed term-limited Republican Doug Ducey. Two Democrats and four Republicans are running in the Aug. 2 primary.
Trump has endorsed state Rep. Mark Finchem, a conservative state lawmaker who was active in 2020 efforts seeking to overturn Biden’s 10,000-vote Arizona victory. He has been a member of the militia group Oath Keepers, a supporter of QAnon conspiracy theories and participated in the Jan. 6 Washington demonstrations that led to the invasion of the Capitol while lawmakers were counting the 2020 electoral votes.
Trump is also backing GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, a former television newscaster who called for imprisoning Hobbs on unspecified charges stemming from her supervision of the 2020 election.
MICHIGAN: The incumbent Democratic secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, a former dean of the Wayne State University Law School, is seeking re-election.
Trump is backing Kristina Karamo, a community college professor who gained a following in 2020 after contending she saw widespread fraud at a Detroit-area tabulation center and repeated the unproven claims in a series of television appearances. The Detroit Free Press subsequently reported she appeared to have taken standard tabulation procedures for something improper.
State Republicans endorsed Karamo and the Trump-backed candidate for state attorney general, Mathew DePerno, though their official nominations will take place at a convention in August.
NEVADA: The incumbent Republican, Barbara Cegavske, was censured by state Republicans after supporting Biden’s 33,000-vote victory and rejecting fraud allegations. Term-limited, she can’t run.
Trump hasn’t yet made an endorsement, but several allies, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Nevada Senate candidate Adam Laxalt, have endorsed Jim Marchant. A former state assemblyman who lost a 2020 House race, he was among the first Nevada Republicans calling to overturn Biden’s victory and is an organizer of the America First Secretary of State Coalition.
One opponent in the June 14 GOP primary is Sparks City Councilman Kristopher Dahir, who defended Cegavske and said there was no widespread voter fraud.
The only declared Democratic candidate is attorney Cisco Aguilar, who was a staffer to the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
PENNSYLVANIA: In Pennsylvania, the governor appoints the secretary of state, who supervises elections in the state.
Doug Mastriano, a 2020 supporter of Trump’s allegations who joined the Jan. 6 demonstration, easily won the GOP nomination in the May 17 primary. Trump endorsed him late in the campaign.
He promised to require all 8.7 million registered Pennsylvanians to re-register and said he would use his power to “decertify or certify any machines or anything else involved with elections.”
His Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, proposed making voting easier by automatically processing registration when a resident applies for a driver’s license or other state document. He also favors Election Day registration.
WISCONSIN: Though it has an elected secretary of state, a bipartisan state election commission, named by the governor and legislative leaders, runs elections. It has been roiled by substantial political in-fighting over the past year, stemming from GOP efforts to force a recount of the 2020 election, which Biden won by 20,000 votes.
Secretary of State Doug La Follette, in office since 1974, is seeking re-election, but both parties have contested Aug. 9 primaries.
Besides Georgia, Idaho, Nebraska, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, the America First coalition’s web site lists secretary of state candidates in Alabama, California, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, New Mexico and South Carolina.
But the key races will be in the six states that determined the 2020 election and could do so again in 2024.
Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Readers may write to him via email at carl.p.leubsdorf@gmail.com
