Republicans in Colorado have rejected two prominent candidates who focused their campaign on election falsehoods. The result was a fresh reminder that allegiance to former President Donald Trump’s lies about massive voter fraud is no guarantee of success among conservatives.
Tina Peters, the Mesa County official who rose to national fame after being indicted for participating in a raid on her own county’s electoral system, lost her primary for the Republican nomination for Colorado secretary of state.
Instead, Republicans selected Pam Anderson, a critic of Trump’s election lies and a former suburban Denver official well regarded among election professionals. She will now face the elections to the state Secretary of State, Democrat Jena Griswold.
“I will continue my fight to restore the confidence of Colorado voters in the face of lies and politicians or interest groups that try to use election management for political advantage,” Anderson said after his victory.
One of Peters’s main allies in Colorado, state Rep. Ron Hanks, lost his bid for the Senate race to Joe O’Dea, a businessman who has repeatedly acknowledged that President Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election. That was a stark contrast to Hanks, who attended the Jan. 6 rally on Washington, doesn’t believe Biden is the rightful president and says he found new purpose in fighting voter fraud after 2020.
Greg Lopez, a former mayor of a Colorado suburb who entered the race after promising to pardon Peters if he became governor, lost the bid for that seat to Heidi Ganahl, a state university board member and a more traditional Republican. . She will face Democratic Governor Jared Polis in November.
In other states holding primaries on Tuesday, Trump’s efforts to rewrite the results of the last election appeared to fall short. In Mississippi, Rep. Michael Guest, a Republican who shunned Trump by voting for an independent commission to investigate the Capitol storming, resisted a challenge from an Air Force pilot. And in Oklahoma, Senator James Lankford handily defeated an evangelical pastor in the primary who criticized him for not repeating Trump’s election lies.
The votes were disputed in the middle of a primary season that has tested the persistence of Trump’s electoral falsehoods, roundly rejected by electoral officials, his own attorney general and the courts, including judges whom he appointed.
Trump has had some victories this year, with candidates denying the outcome of the 2020 election and winning Republican primaries for election official positions in Alabama, Indiana, Nevada and New Mexico. In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, who was on Capitol Hill on January 6, won the Republican nomination for governor, and if elected he would be in a position to nominate the secretary of state, who oversees elections.
In Utah, Senator Mike Lee won his Republican primary against two rivals who criticized him for his staunch loyalty to Trump and his uncompromising legislative style.
But there have been several notable defeats, especially in Georgia, where Trump recruited hopefuls to defeat the governor and secretary of state, who refused to declare him the inappropriate winner in the state in 2020. Both easily beat their rivals.
The primaries were held at a time of political tension in the United States, just days after the Supreme Court struck down women’s constitutional right to obtain an abortion.
After that decision, abortion gained prominence in the campaign. O’Dea is an unusual Republican who defends most abortion rights. He is in favor of banning late-term abortions, but says the decision at earlier stages should be between “a mother and her god.” In November he will face Democratic Sen. Michael Bennett, who won his closest vote in 2010 by lashing out at his Republican rival for opposing abortion rights.
Hanks opposes abortion in all circumstances, including rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. Democrats, who saw him as the easiest candidate to beat in November, spent more than $4 million in an unsuccessful bid for him to win the nomination.
A similar strategy played out in Illinois, where farmer and state senator Darren Bailey garnered a belated endorsement from Trump over the weekend. Democrats also spent more than $16 million promoting him to Richard Irvin, the first black mayor of Aurora, the state’s second-largest city. Irvin was considered a much more difficult rival for Governor JB Pritzker, and had strong support from Republican donors.
At her victory party, Bailey said she represented “ordinary people” and vowed to win in November.
Kathy Salvi, a Chicago lawyer, won the Republican Senate nomination over six other candidates and will face Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran who is wildly popular and uncontested in the primary.
In addition to Colorado, Illinois, Mississippi, and Oklahoma, elections were held in Utah, New York, Nebraska, and South Carolina. Tuesday was the last night of primaries in several states until August, when candidates for governor of the US Senate will be chosen in Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, Missouri and other states.
Not all the votes were decisive rejections of electoral denialism. In Utah, two Republican critics of Trump failed to defeat Sen. Mike Lee, whom they accused of being too focused on currying favor with the former president and helping him try to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Also in Colorado, belligerent Rep. Lauren Boebert easily defeated her primary rival, moderate state Sen. Don Coram.
In addition to a gubernatorial candidate, Illinois elected congressmen in rare votes among elected representatives due to redistricting last year. Democratic Rep. Sean Casten defeated Rep. Marie Newman in a Chicago-area district. And Republican Rep. Rodney Davis, one of the last moderates in the GOP caucus, fell to Trump-backed Rep. Mary Miller, who at a rally with the former president this weekend described the Supreme Court’s decision as “a victory for white life.” A spokesman said she meant “the right to life.”
In Mississippi, Republican Rep. Steven Palazzo lost his primary after six terms in office. A report from the Congressional ethics office accused him last year of embezzling campaign funds.
In New York, Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul, who took control of the state last fall when Andrew Cuomo resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal, easily prevailed over rivals from the party’s left and center. She will face Rep. Lee Zeldin, who won the Republican nomination against a series of contenders including Andrew Giuliani, son of former New York mayor and Trump confidant Rudolph Giuliani. Trump did not endorse any candidate in that vote.
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Associated Press writers Sara Burnett in Chicago and Claire Savage in McHenry, Illinois, contributed to this report.
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