Voters in Indiana and Ohio are heading to the polls today to vote in the states’ primary elections. Here are the Republican candidates running for Congress, as well as state-level positions like secretary of state, who support former President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie.”
Transcript
Kaleigh Rogers: Primary season is here and across the country, candidates who have questioned the legitimacy of the 2022 election are running for offices up and down the ballot. FiveThirtyEight and ABC News have been tracking candidates running for Congress and state-level positions like governor, secretary of state and attorney general. Here’s who supports Trump’s “Big Lie” in today’s primaries — they’ve all either said that Trump’s loss or the 2020 election was illegitimate or took legal action to overturn its results.
In Indiana, we’ve identified four candidates so far who have backed Trump’s false allegations of election fraud. That includes Representative Jackie Walorski. She’s running for re-election in Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District, along with Representative Jim Baird in the 4th District. These candidates were among a group of Republicans in Congress who voted not to certify some of the results from the 2020 election. There’s also Ben Ruiz. He’s running for Congress in Indiana’s 1st district and his platform includes claims that the election was stolen through ballot “stuffing and shuffling.”
In Ohio, we’ve identified 21 candidates so far who have promoted the Big Lie. One race in particular has attracted a number of them: the Republican primary for Ohio’s open Senate seat. In fact, in a debate last month, six of the seven candidates said they believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent. That includes Josh Mandel, who has made claims of election fraud a central part of his campaign, saying that the election was “stolen” from Trump. It also includes J.D. Vance, who’s been endorsed by Trump and has echoed the former president’s claims of a rigged election. Finally, there’s John Adams, who’s running for secretary of state in Ohio and has said that the 2020 election was, quote, “clearly not legitimate.” Secretaries of state have a ton of authority over elections, so we’ll be paying particular attention to candidates running for those offices. Electing a Big Lie supporter in these primaries could have a profound impact on how elections are carried out in the future
