Greetings, OnPolitics readers!
It’s Amy here with a special USA TODAY Network project to share.
Across the country, more than 300 candidates who have either questioned or renounced the 2020 outcome without providing evidence will be on the ballot in 2022.
They are vying for Congress, governor, attorney general and secretary of state, and a significant number are running in vital battleground states that propelled Joe Biden into the White House.
The USA TODAY Network examined seven of those swing states Biden won in 2020 — Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada — representing a total of 84 electoral votes.
“We hear stories about all this is what’s happening nationally, but we have to remember that we don’t have a national election. We have 50 different elections,” said USA TODAY reporter Phillip M. Bailey, who wrote the overarching story.
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One challenge was defining what an “election denier” is, project editor and Atlantic Region Politics and Government Editor Dustin Racioppi writes:
The term election denier is a loaded one, but the definition isn’t always clear. That’s why it’s important to define it.
In these seven states, a candidate is included as an election denier if they:
Sources included in the main story for this project may have different ways to define an election denier.
But the many experts interviewed by USA TODAY agree that denying the legitimacy of the 2020 election poses a threat to American democracy. That’s why it’s important for the public to know precisely what candidates have said and done as they seek their votes in November, in an election those candidates may not accept.
📲 Dig deeper:Hundreds of elections deniers running for office nationwide in 2022 pose ‘major threat’ to U.S. democracy
✈️Next stop: Florida. President Joe Biden is headed to Florida tomorrow to address communities that have been impacted by Hurricane Ian. For a full look at how the hurricane has damaged the state,click here.
