Denying Results Of 2020 Election Cost Republicans Numerous Seats In 2022 Midterms

According to a new analysis published in The New York Times this week, Republican candidates in the 2022 midterms who denied the results of the 2020 election did far worse than Republicans who did not embrace election conspiracies. And there weren't subtle differences - in some races it was determined that election denial cost Republican candidates as much as 4% of their potential votes, which impacted the outcome in numerous races. This explains why Republicans are so desperate to stop Trump's election lies before 2024 rolls around, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses.

Check out our merch by visiting our store

Subscribe to our podcast

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Many Republicans in Congress, in the House, the Senate, the Republicans on Fox News, Republicans, and other conservative media outlets for many, many months now have been telling Donald Trump and other election deniers that it's time to move on. You can't keep living in the past. Please, for the love of God, stopped talking about 2020. And for the most part, it kind of seemed like these Republicans were saying it, maybe because they're tired of being reminded that Trump is a massive loser. Or maybe they understood that it helped suppress Republican votes. I mean, reports had already proven that Donald Trump's fake claims of, you know, stolen elections helped suppress the vote in Georgia in those, uh, uh, special election run, not special election, but the runoffs that happened in early 2021 that gave both seats to the Democrats. So maybe they understood then how bad it was to convince people you can't trust elections because they know that it made Republicans stay home. But according to a new analysis published in the New York Times this week, that suppression of voters in 2022, because of the Republican's election lies, was much worse than anybody could have imagined. Let me read this.

Denying the results of the 2020 election and casting doubts about the nation's voting system cost statewide Republican candidates, 2.3 to 3.7 percentage points in the midterms last year, according to a new study from the State's United Action, a nonpartisan group that promotes fair elections, even at the lowest end of the spectrum, 2.3 percentage points would've been enough to swing several critical midterm races that Republicans lost, including the contest for Governor and Attorney General in Arizona and the Senate elections in Nevada and Georgia. In each of those races, the Republican nominee had either expressed doubts about the 2020 election or outright rejected its legitimacy in the midterms. A slate of election denying candidates ran together as the America First Coalition. These candidates organized in part by Jim Marchant, the Republican nominee for Secretary of State of Nevada, sought to take over critical parts of the nation's election infrastructure by running for Secretary of State Attorney General, and governor and states across the country.

But in every major battleground state, these candidates lost. What we found was lying about elections isn't just bad for our democracy, it's bad politics, said Joanna Lidgate, the Chief Executive of State's United Action. To put it another way, when you have candidates that are going out there telling voters, Hey, make sure you vote for me, also, just remember you can't trust elections. Those voters like, well, then what? Why would I, like, why'd you say the first thing that I have to vote and then tell me that I, I shouldn't vote because I can't trust I'm not gonna vote. That is literally what happened in those races where those candidates this past year said that,

And the best part about it is these Republicans haven't stopped. They haven't stopped. Trump has actually already come out this week and said that the 2024 election is already being rigged.