Each primary week, FiveThirtyEight and ABC News bring you the candidates who have questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election or took legal action to overturn its results. This week, we focused on Nevada because so many Big Lie-supporting candidates are running — including yet another one who attended Trump’s rally that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Transcript
Tom Heck is so certain that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump he based an entire campaign ad around it in his bid to become the Republican nominee for governor of Nevada.
“I know it, you know it, we all know it. Trump won, Biden lost, Democrats and RINOs stole the 2020 election.”
Heck is one of 15 candidates running in that Republican primary, and he’s not alone in his beliefs. Since the primaries began, I’ve been bringing you the candidates running each week who believe Trump’s Big Lie. But this week we’re just going to focus on Nevada, because so many GOP candidates there have questioned Trump’s loss, said the 2020 election was illegitimate or took legal action to overturn its results. Here are some of the Big Lie believers FiveThirtyEight and ABC News have identified who are running in Nevada’s primaries this week.
The Republican primary for governor is one to watch because whoever wins will be challenging current Democratic governor Steve Sisolak. In purple Nevada, he’s far from a shoo-in: In an April poll, Sisolak did beat out Republican front-runners in hypothetical matchups, but he didn’t get a majority of support from voters in any of them. As a result, there’s a competitive race on the GOP side. The front-runners include Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, who said he’s not sure the 2020 election was legitimate, and claimed there was “probably fraud on both sides.” There’s also former U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, who has called Biden an “illegitimate president,” and biotech entrepreneur Guy Nohra, who said in his campaign announcement video, “It’s time to expose the election fraud we all know is there.”
Lastly, there’s lawyer and former boxer Joey Gilbert, who said the 2020 election was “corrupted and that Trump was the rightful winner.”
Elsewhere in Nevada, two of the three candidates in the Republican primary for the state’s 4th Congressional District have endorsed the Big Lie. Business owner Sam Peters said he would not have voted to certify the 2020 election results had he been in Congress, and said he wasn’t sure Biden won Nevada — a state the president won by more than 33,000 votes. And then there’s state Rep. Annie Black, who is yet another Republican candidate who personally attended the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, though she says she did not enter the building.
The Republican race for secretary of state in Nevada has also attracted candidates who question the 2020 election, most notably former state Rep. Jim Marchant, who supported two lawsuits challenging the use of signature verification machines. He’s also said he would not have certified Nevada’s results if he had been the secretary of state in 2020.
We’re continuing to keep tabs on which Big Lie candidates have won their races. If you want to see which candidates in your state support the Big Lie, follow along with FiveThirtyEight.