AP
Secretary of State races — usually low-profile races that determine who helps manage a state’s elections — have drawn national attention and millions of dollars in political spending this year as several Republican candidates who question the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election seek the posts. work.
In all, voters in 27 states will choose secretaries of state in the midterms. Fourteen of those seats are currently held by Republicans and 13 by Democrats.
Now, the central role these offices will play in determining the outcome of future elections, including a potential 2024 rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
Here’s a look at five key Foreign Ministers:
Arizona: Republican voters in Arizona have chosen state Rep. Mark Finchem as their candidate. Finchem, who has described himself as a member of the far-right Oath Keeper group, received Trump’s endorsement in September 2021. The GOP lawmaker lobbied to throw out the 2020 election results in some of the largest counties of the state – including Maricopa, home of Phoenix, where a widely derided review of ballots ordered by state Senate Republicans concluded that Biden had won more votes than Trump.
He faces Democrat Adrian Fontes, the former top election official in Maricopa County. He lost his bid for re-election as county recorder two years ago.
Georgia: The Georgia contest features one of the country’s best-known pollsters — Republican Brad Raffensperger, who refused Trump’s request to “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss in the Peach State.
Raffensperger’s national profile has made him a tougher target for Democratic candidate state Rep. Bee Nguyen, herself a rising political star. He has targeted Raffensperger’s support for an election law passed last year that imposed new voting restrictions and seized on his views on abortion in a bid to gain ground. The Republican’s campaign aides have argued that Raffensperger’s position on abortion is unrelated to the job he now holds.
Michigan: The race pits incumbent Democrat Jocelyn Benson – a leading national voice opposing the denial of the election – against Republican Christina Karamo, who has made false claims about the 2020 election and was behind the attack on the 6 January 2021 at the US Capitol.
Karamo, a community college professor who secured Trump’s endorsement last year, said she won the election and signed an unsuccessful Supreme Court lawsuit challenging Biden’s victory in four states. She — along with Finchem and several other Republican candidates — have joined a coalition of so-called “America First Constitutional Conservative” candidates who have pledged to ban mail-in ballots, expand voter identification and eliminate early voting. voting.
Republicans in the state criticized Benson for her decision to mail absentee ballot applications to every voter in 2020 during the pandemic, but courts have upheld her authority to do so.
Minnesota: Republican attorney Kim Crockett is challenging Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon. Crockett would like to increase in-person voting, shorten the state’s current 46-day early voting window and require voters to show identification to vote in the state, which is currently not required for active voters under Minnesota law.
Republican lawmakers opposed Simon’s strike deals with parties during the pandemic to drop the requirement that voters who vote by mail find another registered voter to monitor their signatures.
Nevada: In Nevada, Republican Jim Marchand – a former state lawmaker who organized the America First coalition of candidates – and Democrat Cisco Aguilar are vying for an open seat in what has emerged as one of the most competitive Secretary of State races in the country .
On his website, Aguilar said he wants to “remove barriers to voter participation” and make elections transparent to “maintain public trust.”
But Marchant has drawn more national attention than Aguilar for his outspoken activism. Marchant has fueled mistrust of voting machines and encouraged county commissions in rural parts of the state to count ballots by hand — a practice critics say could lead to errors and delays in delivering results.
