jim marchant q
see America First SOS Coalition
see finchem
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- Khaya Himmelman @ Talking Points Memo: All The Places Election Deniers Could Be in Charge of Elections After the Midterms
In an increasingly ominous trend, there are currently hundreds of election deniers on the ballot for the 2026 midterm elections. And although history has shown election denialism is not a winning campaign strategy, it continues to be a powerful force in the right-wing movement, from President Donald Trump on down.
According to the nonpartisan non-profit States United Action, there are at least 140 election deniers currently running for statewide and congressional office. In statewide races, there are at least 42 election deniers running in 23 states. And in congressional races, there are at least 98 election deniers running in 25 states.
“We’ve been tracking this movement since right after the 2020 election. And one thing we can say about the election denial movement now is that it seems to be more powerful than ever,” Kelly Rader, research director at States United Action, told TPM.
“In some ways it reflects how election denial has matured into an organized movement,” Brendan Fischer, director of strategic investigations for Campaign Legal Center, similarly told TPM.
“Election denial is no longer just a collection of fringe activists and isolated candidates making unsupported claims of election fraud,” Fischer added. “It’s really evolved into a well-funded, coordinated infrastructure of activists and advocacy organizations that has transformed the fringe conspiracy theories into a cornerstone of the conservative movement.”
Of particular concern are the election denial candidates running for secretary of state positions, potentially putting an elected official who has denied the integrity of a free and fair election at the helm of election administration in a particular state.
“Secretaries in most states are the people who are in charge of elections there and they are going to serve as really important backstops to the president’s overreach into elections, overreach on other issues, and his tendency to sow doubt on legitimate election outcomes,” Rader explained.
Rader said this phenomenon of election deniers running for secretary of state is really part of a “broader power grab.”
“We started originally tracking these statewide offices because they’re important for election administration,” she added, “but now that the president is an election denier, he’s appointing people throughout federal agencies who really have undermined public trust in our elections almost like it’s their job.”
States United Action has been keeping track of all the election deniers running for office, and according to their data, there are election deniers running for secretary of state positions in seven states: Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Vermont.
Nevada
In Nevada, Jim Marchant, a longtime election denier, won the Republican primary for Secretary of State in Nevada this month. Marchant, as TPM has previously reported, has been claiming the 2020 election was stolen after he lost his race for a U.S. House seat in 2020, and since Trump lost that year’s presidential election.
Marchant, who has ties to QAnon, was also the founding member of the America First Secretary of State Coalition, a post-2020 group of MAGA election deniers all running for secretary of state positions on a platform of election denialism.
Arizona
Arizona GOP state rep. Alexander Kolodin, who is a member of the right-wing Arizona Freedom Caucus, is an election denier and is now a Republican candidate for secretary of state in Arizona.
Kolodin was sanctioned in 2023 by the State Bar of Arizona for participating in lawsuits, including the so-called “Kraken” lawsuits, a sprawling conspiratorial web of documents challenging the outcome of the 2020 election, per Arizona Mirror.
Wyoming
GOP State Rep. Rachel Rodriquez-Williams is running for secretary of state of Wyoming, and is currently the chairwoman of the far-right Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which has tried to push through a series of “election integrity” bills.
These proposals, which were never approved, included proposals to ban ballot boxes and ballot collecting and require hand-count audits, among other things. All of these measures are rooted in conspiracy theories about the safety and integrity of the country’s election system.
Colorado
James Wiley, who ran unopposed, won the GOP nomination for Colorado secretary of state last month. Wiley is running on a campaign focused on restoring “free and fair elections” and, according to his website, has sued “Dominion Voting Machines, Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg, the Secretary of States and Governors of Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, Secretary Griswold” for what he describes as “election misconduct.”
Wiley also advocated for the release of Tina Peters, the former elections administrator of Mesa County, Colorado who breached her office’s own voting equipment and was convicted of several felonies related to her efforts to find non-existent 2020 voter fraud. Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis commuted Peters’ nine-year prison sentence in May of this year and she was released on parole shortly after.
Nebraska
Election denier Scott Petersen won the Republican primary for secretary of state in May. Petersen has been repeating lies about the 2020 election for years. In March of this year, per the Nebraska Examiner, he elevated disinfo related to the FBI’s recent Fulton County 2020 election raid.
“By the way, if another state steals elections … our vote doesn’t count as much, right?” he said, referring to the Fulton County FBI raid.
Wisconsin
Wisconsin’s primary will take place on August 11, and election denier Jay Schroeder is currently on the ballot for the GOP nomination for secretary of state.
Schroeder once said in an interview that “there is lots of reasonable doubt” about Joe Biden winning the 2020 election. In Wisconsin, the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission runs elections, and not the secretary of state. Schroeder, as he outlined on his campaign website, wants to strip the commission of that authority and make the secretary of state the state’s chief election official.
Vermont
H. Brooke Paige is on the ballot in Vermont’s primary for Secretary of State on August 11. In the past, Paige has avoided answering questions about whether or not Biden won the 2020 election. “I have a hard time not believing my lyin’ eyes,” he told VTDigger in 2022.
Khaya Himmelman** is a reporter at TPM, based in New York. She previously covered politics and misinformation for The Messenger, Grid, and The Dispatch.
- David Corn @ Mother Jones: GOP Secretary of State Candidates Scheduled to Appear with a White Nationalist and Conspiracy Theorists.
mma 10 22
CLETA
...This instance of a CPI- and GOP-linked Fairfax County group sending material from QAnon influencersto the county board of elections further demonstrates the connections between the QAnon and election denial movements. Media Matters has previously documented True the Vote’s collaboration with QAnon figures, major election denial funder Patrick Byrne’s significant connections to the QAnon community, and a QAnon influencer’s involvement with a coalition recruiting and aiming to elect election-denialist secretary of state candidates. And according to Nevada Republican secretary of state candidate Jim Marchant, the leader of that coalition, he had been “working very close” with Mitchell and CPI.
https://www.mediamatters.org/lara-logan/gop-secretary-state-nominees-will-appear-event-lara-logan-who-pushes-antisemitic
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no lnx vid
GOP secretary of state nominees will appear at event with Lara Logan, who pushes antisemitic conspiracy theories
WRITTEN BY ERIC HANANOKI
PUBLISHED 10/14/22
Republican secretary of state nominees from Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, and Nevada are scheduled to attend an “election integrity forum” moderated by former CBS News correspondent and Fox Nation host Lara Logan this weekend. Those candidates are associating with a far-right conspiracy theorist who has repeatedly pushed antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish people supposedly trying to manipulate American events, from the Civil War to the assassination of presidents.
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New Mexico secretary of state candidate Audrey Trujillo recently announced that her campaign would host a “New Mexico Election Integrity Forum” on October 15 featuring Logan. The event will feature election-denying secretary of state candidates who have a history of promoting toxic rhetoric and conspiracy theories, including in the media: Rayla Campbell (Massachusetts);Mark Finchem (Arizona); Kristina Karamo (Michigan); Jim Marchant (Nevada); and Trujillo.
Campbell is a QAnon supporter. Finchem posted QAnon propaganda on the white nationalist haven Gab. Karamo hosted an anti-LGBTQ podcast and claimed Beyoncé, Cardi B, and other musicians are tools of Satan. Marchant has forwarded bizarre conspiracy theories about a global “cabal” stealing elections. And Trujillo has claimed that Democrats and the deep state “create” school shootings so that they can “make people fearful” and “take away our guns.”
Other than Campbell, all of those candidates are part of Marchant’s America First Secretary of State Coalition, which falsely claims that Donald Trump won the 2020 election and works with QAnon influencers. They and Logan are also connected to QAnon influencer Juan O. Savin, who has pushed conspiracy theories about 9/11 and the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting.
The New Mexico event is the latest election-denying event for Logan, who has traveled across the country moderating such events in places including Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Ohio, and Texas.
Logan has increasingly associated with the QAnon community. She has also pushed numerous far-right conspiracy theories this year. Among them:
She claimed that Darwinism is a plot from “the Rothschilds.” Antisemites have long accused the Rothschilds of masterminding world events and tragedies.
She shared a piece claiming that Jewish people are behind “a one world government" and “central banking and big corporate money" and are the “divider and conqueror” and “the aggressor, yet always the victim." The piece also claimed the Rothschilds engineered the U.S. Civil War and the assassinations of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, and that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin purged "the Rothschild money changers.”
She claimed that January 6 was a “manufactured event. We know it was orchestrated just like Charlottesville was orchestrated.”
She said that the United Nations is “infiltrating 100 million people into the United States as the basis for forming a regional government instead of a national government.”
Logan has continued pushing fringe claims in recent weeks.
During a September 19 video to her Locals.com channel, Logan said people came to the United States in 1776 because they were purportedly “escaping the reach of the Rothschilds and, you know, the central bankers of today.” She then proceeded to claim that the Illuminati -- a secret society that is frequently the focus of global conspiracy theories -- “were able to infiltrate” the country through seminaries and then suggested that “the same model” has been used to control government, schools, corporations, and the media.
Video
CitationFrom a September 19, 2022, video by Lara Logan
OFF-CAMERA ASSISTANT: From Isaiah586: “Hello, Laura. How do you come to understand this is a spiritual battlewhen so many pastors don't even get it? The church at large is asleep. God bless you.”
LARA LOGAN: Well, that's a very interesting question, because the church — I don’t believe the church at large is asleep. I think the church is complicit. And I'll tell you why. It's rooted in history. If you go back to the founding of this country back in 1776. Right? And you look at how this country was founded. You had people who were escaping the reach of the Rothschilds and, you know, the central bankers of today, those old families. You had them break free of their clutches and head for the colonies, right? Head into uncharted waters.And the Illumens at the time, which are the hierarchy of the Illuminati, they allowed that to happen. They had people watching this experiment to make sure that if it indeed did succeed, that they would have the ability to influence it and control it. But they didn't really have great expectations.
…
The colonies, the people rise up and they say, we're not going to put up with this. We're not going to have it. And that's when the Illumens look at this and they say, well, wait a minute, now. This pesky problem is growing bigger and stronger. You know, go ahead and take care of it. And that's what they expected to happen. What they didn't expect to happen was that the colonies together would rise up and defeat their colonial masters, the British, and that they would march forward to freedom and establish the United States in 1776. And so everything that we're seeing today stems from that moment in history. Because what the Illumen then realized they had to do was to infiltrate the churches because this was the backbone of the rebellion. And what happened historically is that they struggled to infiltrate with the church leaders and the pastors and so on. So where did they turn their attention? They turned it to the seminaries, and that's where they were able to infiltrate, to infiltrate the houses of learning as opposed to the houses of worship.
…
And so what you talk about as the church being asleep is really a very well-funded, orchestrated takeover of the church and infiltration of the church into decay from within, which is pretty much the same model that you can see across the board. It happened in education in this country. It's happened in government. It's happened in our government institutions, from the executive branch to the Department of Justice, to the colleges, to the schools, to the teachers unions and so on and so on. And now, of course, the corporations, the PR firms, the publishing firms, the media, you can see these same patterns replicated over and over. Because why?Because one side has to come in darkness and in deception,hide their true intent, mask who they really are, infiltrate what others have built, and take it over from within. Because they don't create. They copy. They counterfeit. They destroy from within. But they don't create.
Logan made similar remarks during a September 15 appearance on the QAnon program The Mel K Show. She said that the Pilgrims were running away from the Rothschilds and that the Illuminati were fighting with the British against the colonists. She later added: “It's absolutely no different today. We're fighting exactly the same ideology and, in some cases, you know, with people like the Rothschilds, the same people even.”
mma 10 22
https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/qanon-influencer-ties-nevada-secretary-state-candidate-suggests-las-vegas
QAnon influencer “Juan O. Savin” — who is connected to Nevada Republican secretary of state candidate Jim Marchant — falsely suggested in an online interview that the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed at least 58 people was “manufactured” and that the victims’ deaths did not happen.
While at a QAnon conference in Las Vegas in 2021, Marchant revealed that Savin, whose real name is Wayne Willott, played a role in recruiting him to run for secretary of state. The two also helped form what is now known as the America First Secretary of State Coalition— a group that Marchant leads with the aim of electing Republican candidates who have made false claims of widespread voter fraud to positions that influence election administration. It includes other GOP candidates, such as Arizona secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, Michigan secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo, and Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano. Other candidates who had been tied to the coalition have since confirmed Savin’s involvement, and Savin has openly discussed in online interviews his involvement with the coalition and its members, such as claiming to have consulted with Karamo.
In an interview posted online on September 28, a fellow QAnon figure claimed that there would be “an illusion of a nuclear attack” with “little toys” like “CGI and all the kind of stuff they did on 9/11.” In response, Savin said that “some of the deaths are real, some of it is manufactured.” He then pointed to the Las Vegas shooting, suggesting it did not “happen the way that we were told it happened.” He then falsely claimed that “there was no spike in emergency room admissions after the Las Vegas shooting.”
Savin’s implication that the Las Vegas shooting’s death count was faked comes as he has repeatedly pushed 9/11**Trutherism**and threatened “civil war” if people “move past” false claims of voter fraud in 2020
[CitationFrom a video uploaded toRumble on September 28, 2022
:{
}:
mICHAEL JACO (HOST): Looks like they want to start some kind of nuclear conflict. Whether it’s going to be real, which I don’t think it will be, or whether it will be some kind of — like, we’re — like you guys are expert at, some kind of illusion, an illusion of a nuclear attack, where they show, you know, through, you know, their mainstream media forces, you know, some kind of attack. Like they’ve already started, you know, saying, “New York, you need to prepare for a nuclear event.” So they could — they could fake one. I totally believe they might fake one, just like they did 9/11, you know, CGI and all the kind of stuff they did on 9/11, you know. You know, directed energy weapons, all kind of crazy stuff that at that time, most of us didn’t realize we had that kind of technology. So, you know, they have little toys, little things they can, they can use. And I think they might use something like it. You can see [they are] talking about it. So what do you think, Juan?
JUAN O. SAVIN: Well, you know, the problem is, if, you know, some of the deaths are real, some of it is manufactured. Did Las Vegas happen the way that we were told it happened? We look at the emergency room admissions and there was no spike in emergency room admissions after the Las Vegas shooting. We look at the buildings collapsed on 9/11. Well, they definitely collapsed — two airplanes, three buildings, a 50-story building, one of only three buildings in the history of the world, steel frame buildings, to collapse like this. It couldn’t have happened the way that it was said that it did. So is there going to be real deaths?
mma 9 22
QAnon influencer Juan O. Savin, who is involved in a coalition to recruit and elect election denier secretary of state candidates, has falsely claimed that the September 11 terrorist attacks were a false flag operation carried out by a United States “shadow government” agency to “manipulate the American people.”
The America First Secretary of State Coalitionis led by Nevada Republican secretary of state nominee Jim Marchant and boasts other GOP candidates, including Arizona secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, Michigan secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo, and Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano. The coalition aims to elect Republican candidates who have made false claims of widespread voter fraud to positions influencing election administration.
In 2021, Marchant appeared at a QAnon conference in Las Vegas and said that Wayne Willott — a QAnon influencer known online as “Juan O. Savin” — helped create the coalition and recruit him to run for secretary of state. Other candidates who had been tied to the coalition have since confirmed Savin’s involvement, and Savin has openly discussed in online interviews his involvement with the coalition and its members, such as claiming to have consulted with Karamo.
While Savin has been involved with the coalition and its members — who, if elected, could play a role in the 2024 presidential election — he has recently promoted the false claim that the September 11 terrorist attacks were an inside job caused by the United States federal government.
During recent interviews, Savin pointed to the September 11 attacks as evidence to claim that President Joe Biden would seek to delay the midterm elections with an announcement in late October, possibly by declaring martial law.
In one interview posted online on September 18, Savin claimed his “buddy Bill Cooper” — referring to a deceased militia member and influential conspiracy theorist — predicted an attack on the World Trade Center months before the September 11 attacks, allegedly saying that the government was “going to try and pin something on Osama bin Laden.” Savin added that “Osama bin Laden didn’t have shit to do with 9/11,” and claimed that it “was somebody’s way of conning you to get you ready so you’d accept what they wanted to do.”
Savin repeated these baseless claims in multiple interviews.In an interview posted online that same day, Savin said that Cooper was “right,” that the September 11 attacks were “staged,” and that then-Vice President Dick Cheney secretly led a part of the federal “shadow government” that was involved in creating “false flags” to “manipulate the American people,” including the “9/11 stuff.[vid]
in another interview posted online two days later, Savin went even further, falsely claiming Cheney led a “shadow government” agency that carried out “false flag” operations, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in order to “create a threat” to “manage the American people and world opinion so that they can help move us” toward “global control.” Savin cited a CIA contractor who supposedly said he went into World Trade Center Building 7 to hide “all the explosives so that they could bring Building 7 down” in a “controlled demolition.” (Savin in the interview also seemed to invoke a baseless conspiracy theory that the 1969 moon landing was staged by the late film director Stanley Kubrick.[[vid]
savin’s 9/11 Trutherism — which is widespread within the QAnon community — comes as he has also threatened “civil war” if people “move past” false claims of voter fraud in 2020. Savin’s influence has also extended outside of the coalition to include traveling with and claiming to have hired far-right figure Lara Logan for “election integrity” events and collaborating with election denial funder Patrick Byrne.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Secretary_of_State_Coalition
America First Secretary of State Coalition ("America First SOS Coalition") is an American conservative coalition formed to support a slate of candidates in the 2022 United States secretary of state elections. The coalition's president is Jim Marchant, a Republican candidate for Nevada Secretary of State,and is headquartered in Las Vegas.[1][2]
Candidates supported by the coalition have advocated former President Donald Trump's baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen. The coalition has endorsed over a dozen candidates for state secretary of state, as well as Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano.[3] The coalition is financially supported by the affiliated Conservatives for Election Integrity PAC (CFEI PAC).[4][5]
- :{1:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{History and foundation:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
- :{2:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Policy goals and support:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
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History and foundation
The existence of the coalition was first disclosed by Marchant during a conversation on Steve Bannon's podcast, War Room.[6] Marchant has been described as the leading organizer of the coalition.[7][8]
The coalition reportedly formed following a meeting in May 2021 involving Marchant, QAnon conspiracy theorist Wayne Willott, and other conservative activists and fundraisers.[9] Mike Lindell,founder and CEO of My Pillow, Inc., is reportedly a backer of the coalition.[10]
Initial candidates supported by the coalition include Mark Finchem (Arizona), Kristina Karamo (Michigan), and Jody Hice (Georgia), each of whom have been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.[11] As of February 2022, Marchant is working to recruit candidates running for secretary of state in both Wisconsin and Minnesota.[12]
Conservatives for Election Integrity PAC (CFEI PAC)
An affiliated political action committee (PAC), the Conservatives for Election Integrity PAC (CFEI PAC), was founded by Marchant with the goal of fundraising for candidates for secretary of state. According to the Brennan Center, the PAC has raised $110,000 as of May 2022. The America Project, founded by former Overstock.com CEO Patrick M. Byrne, is a prominent contributor to the PAC.[4]
Policy goals and support
According to The New York Times, the coalition supports eliminating alleged voter fraud through "eliminating mail-in ballots, requiring single-day voting and committing to “aggressive voter roll cleanup,” measures that could suppress thousands of Democratic votes."[13]
Candidates
The list of candidates are provided from the America First SOS website.[14]
| Candidate | State | Primary Date | Primary Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Audrey Trujillo |  New Mexico | June 7, 2022[3][a] |  Nominated |
| Doug Mastriano |  Pennsylvania (Governor) | May 17, 2022[15] | Nominated |
| Kristina Karamo |  Michigan | April 9, 2022[16][b] | Nominated |
| Mark Finchem |  Arizona | August 3, 2022[17] | Nominated |
| Michael Brown |  Kansas | August 2, 2022[18] |  Lost primary |
| Tina Peters |  Colorado | June 28, 2022[19] | Lost primary |
| Jim Zeigler |  Alabama | June 21, 2022[20][c] | Lost runoff |
| Diego Morales |  Indiana | June 18, 2022[21][d] | Nominated |
| **Jim Marchant** |  Nevada | June 14, 2022[22] | Nominated |
| Keith Blanford |  South Carolina | June 14, 2022[23] | Lost primary |
| Rachel Hamm |  California | June 7, 2022[24] | Lost primary |
| Jody Hice | [ ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_%28U.S._state%29 "Georgia (U.S. state)") Georgia | May 24, 2022[25] | Lost primary |
| Dorothy Moon |  Idaho | May 17, 2022[26] | Lost primary |
| Robert Borer |  Nebraska | May 10, 2022[27] | Lost primary |
See also
- 2022 United States secretary of state elections
- America First (policy)
- Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election
- QAnon
References
...
- Far-right organizations in the United States
- Conservative organizations in the United States
- QAnon
- Organizations established in 2021
mma 7 22
wayne Willott, a QAnon influencer known online as “Juan O. Savin” who is recruiting and supporting candidates for election-administration positions around the country,warned of “civil war” if people try to “move past” the 2020 presidential election.
Savin is part of a coalition led by Jim Marchant, which aims to recruit and elect secretary of state :{candidate:(style="background-color:#ffff33;"):}::{s:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}: who have pushed false claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
While appearing on a QAnon supporter’s online show, Savin said that “you cannot move past” the false voter fraud claims in the 2020 election and that if people try to there would be “probably civil war for America” because “there’s plenty of Americans that will not put up with this and they will not stand down.”
:{
}:
SAVIN: The message that the president [Donald Trump] gave to America on his last day in office is the message from my book. It’s all about election 2020. It’s all about election 2020. You cannot move past it. If you move past it, you’ll never get another better, fairer, straighter shot, and, unfortunately, probably civil war for America, cause there’s plenty of Americans that will not put up with this and they will not stand down.
SCOTT KESTERSON (HOST): I agree. This is going to be — this is a big moment.
omg
an 6 22
in Nevada, far-right MAGA Republican, QAnon ally and conspiracy theorist Jim Marchant has been a loud, aggressive promoter of the "big lie" — falsely claiming that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. And he is now the GOP nominee for Nevada secretary of state, which means that if he defeats the Democratic nominee, attorney Cisco Aguilar, in November, he will be the state’s top election official in 2023.
On Monday, June 14, Marchant was the clear winner in Nevada’s GOP secretary of state primary, picking up 38 percent of the vote and defeating second-place candidate Jesse Haw by 18 percent. The position Marchant is running for is presently held by Barbara Cegavske, a conservative Republican who was censured by the Nevada Republican Party for refusing to promote the "big lie" after now-President Joe Biden won the state in 2020. Cegavske, who is term-limited, maintained that there was no evidence to show that Biden didn’t win Nevada fair and square — and she was inundated with death threats from Trump supporters after certifying Biden’s victory in Nevada.
But Marchant has stressed that had he been Nevada secretary of state in 2020, he never would have certified Biden’s victory. Marchant is president of an organization called the America First Secretary of State Coalition, which has been promoting MAGA Republicans and Trump loyalists who are running for secretary of state positions — including Mark Finchem in Arizona and Kristina Karamo in Michigan. The group also promoted Rep. Jody Hice’s primary campaign against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, but that primary didn’t go well for the Trump-endorsed Hice; Raffensperger, who refused to go along with Trump’s "big lie," enjoyed a landslide victory.
In Pennsylvania, the America First Secretary of State Coalition is supporting Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, a “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theorist who has falsely claimed that Trump won Pennsylvania in 2020. If elected governor in November, Mastriano will have a chance to pick Pennsylvania’s next secretary of state; in Pennsylvania, the secretary of state is chosen by the governor.
The term “voter suppression” is usually used to describe all the ways in which GOP-sponsored laws at the state level are making it more difficult to vote, such as eliminating or reducing early voting and mail-in ballots —and it is no coincidence that they are targeting heavily Democratic areas. But what Marchant and others in the America First Secretary of State Coalition are proposing is much more dangerous than making voting more difficult or inconvenient. Marchant is part of a movement in which MAGA Republicans are trying to take over the administration of elections and be in a position to simply throw out election results they don’t like.
One of Marchant’s main allies is QAnon extremist Wayne Willott, a.k.a. Juan O. Savin, who co-founded the America First Secretary of State Coalition. Members of QAnon were among the extremists who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, but Willott’s involvement in QAnon obviously doesn’t bother Marchant.
If the 2022 midterms see a major red wave and enough MAGA Republicans are victorious at the state level, it could affect the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. MAGA secretaries of state could refuse to certify any Democratic Electoral College victories in swing states, making false claims of election fraud just as Trump’s allies did in 2020.
From Pennsylvania to Michigan to Arizona, the MAGA movement and “Stop the Steal” Republicans are determined to be in control regardless of the actual outcome of elections — and in Nevada, that includes secretary of state nominee Jim Marchant.
https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/qanon-followers/
no lnx twt
QAnon followers are focused on 'a new project' in swing states
Meaghan Ellis February 11, 2022
QAnon enthusiasts, who believe former President Donald Trump represents some form of new world order, are now focusing on a different plot in hopes of regaining control of the White House.
According to The Guardian, QAnon advocates have turned their attention toward Secretary of State election races in various swing states.So, why do these races have the attention of QAnon followers? They believe these particular races could be the key to ensuring there is not a repeat of the 2020 presidential election. In many swing states, Republican election officials refused to assist Trump in overturning the presidential election.
Now, QAnon believers and far-right extremists are adamant about putting people in place who align with Trump's beliefs. Alex Kaplan, a senior researcher at Media Matters for America who has studied the evolution of conspiracy theories, explained how QAnon's actions could create more problems in the very near future.
“This is the way that QAnon could trigger a constitutional crisis,” said Kaplan. “QAnon is linked to an effort to recruit and elect candidates to positions directly controlling election administrations, and given their ties to harming democracy, that is very concerning.”
Per The Guardian, QAnon's agenda and their strategic plot to control the outcome of elections was detailed by former Republican lawmaker and Trump loyalist, Jim Marchant who is currently running to become a high-ranking election official in Nevada. Marchant revealed the moment he was propositioned by QAnon advocates and QAnon influencer Juan Savin about running for Secretary of State. It was at that moment when he realized those particular election races could be a key to controlling elections.
“I knew right then that they had figured out that we need to take back the secretary of state offices around the country. Not only did they ask me to run, they asked me to put together a coalition of other like-minded secretary of state candidates. I got to work, Juan O Savin helped, and we formed a coalition.”
Savin has also spoken out about the QAnon agenda. In January, Savin also shared details about the supposed "project" the movement had in place. Marchant explained, “We have a project that we are doing helping candidates across the country that we started here in Nevada that has prospered pretty well, with a number of Trump endorsements."
On Sunday, Savin also weighed in on “the secretary of state stuff”, as he boasted that “across the country we are gaining strength rapidly to get back into this game in an effective way. A lot of those offices that they thought they held and weren’t going to matter, we are going to flip those.”...
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james Carl Marchant Jr. (born May 28, 1956) is an American politician in Nevada. A member of the Republican Party, he represented the 37th district in the Nevada Assembly, covering parts of the northwestern Las Vegas Valley, from 2016 to 2018. Marchant is the president of the America First Secretary of State Coalition.[1]
Marchant was the Republican nominee for Nevada's 4th congressional district in 2020, losing that election to incumbent Democrat Steven Horsford. He sued to have the election reversed, based on unfounded voter fraud claims.[2]
Marchant is the Republican party nominee for Secretary of State of Nevada in the 2022 race.[3] He has been endorsed by Congressmen Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, along with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.[4] He was scheduled to speak at an October 2021 QAnon conference in Las Vegas.[5][2] Marchant said that he would not have certified Joe Biden's victory in Nevada if he had been Secretary of State at the time of the election.[6]
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Early life and education
Marchant was born on May 28, 1956, in Gainesville, Florida. He graduated from Troy University with a degree in criminal justice, and moved to Nevada from Florida in 2005. Marchant worked for the family business from 1978 until 1984, when he left to found his own business.[7]
Political career
Nevada State Assembly
In 2015, Marchant threatened to run against then-Speaker John Hambrick; he ultimately decided to challenge Glenn E. Trowbridge instead.[8][9] Marchant defeated Trowbridge and then Democrat Sean D. Lyttle in the general election.[7] In 2018, Marchant was unopposed in the Republican primary, but narrowly lost his re-election campaign for Assembly District 37 to Shea Backus, a Democrat, by a vote of 14,222 to 14,087.[10]
2020 congressional candidacy
Marchant ran against incumbent Democrat Steven Horsford in the race for Nevada's 4th congressional district in 2020. After losing the election, he sued to have the result reversed, alleging unsubstantiated voter fraud claims.[2] Marchant's request was denied by a Clark County District Court judge on November 20, 2022.[11]
2022 Secretary of State election
Main article: 2022 Nevada Secretary of State election
Marchant is currently a candidate for Secretary of State of Nevada in the 2022 election. Marchant has denied Biden's victory in the state in 2020, falsely claiming that “It’s almost statistically impossible that Joe Biden won." He has stated that, if he wins, he will remove all electronic voting machines and end vote-by-mail and early voting programs.[12] Marchant won the Republican primary, receiving 38% of the vote, while Jesse Haw finished in second place with 18%.[13]
Electoral history
Nevada Assembly District 37 Republican primary, 2016[14]| Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| Republican | Jim Marchant | 2,511 | 62.5% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Glenn E. Trowbridge | 1,506 | 37.5% | |
| Total votes | 4,017 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
Nevada Assembly District 37 election, 2016[15]| Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| Republican | Jim Marchant | 16,085 | 52.5% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Sean D. Lyttle | 14,561 | 47.5% | |
| Total votes | 30,646 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
Nevada Assembly District 37 election, 2018[10]| Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| Democratic | Shea Backus | 14,222 | 50.2% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Jim Marchant (incumbent) | 14,087 | 49.7% | |
| Total votes | 28,309 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
2020 United States House of Representatives elections[16]| Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| Democratic | Steven Horsford (incumbent) | 168,457 | 50.7 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Jim Marchant | 152,284 | 45.8 | |
| Libertarian | Jonathan Royce Esteban | 7,978 | 2.4 | |
| Independent American Party (Nevada) | Barry Rubinson | 3,750 | 1.1 | |
| Total votes | 332,469 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
| Democratic hold | Democratic hold | Democratic hold | Democratic hold |
Personal
Marchant's wife is bodybuilder Nikki Fuller.[17]
References
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