Dozens of candidates who reject the result of the 2020 presidential race are back on the ballot this year, and they are not aiming for symbolic posts. They are running for the offices that write the rules, oversee vote counts and sign off on the final results. These would-be power brokers are seeking secretary of state jobs, open governorships and attorney general seats in at least 23 states, including some of the most hard-fought presidential battlegrounds. For voters, these races are not only about policy platforms but also about who holds the pen when the official election record is written.
That landscape comes into focus through data from States United Action, which tracks candidates against a five-point definition of "election deniers" and counts at least 53 such campaigns for statewide office this year. The group maintains a public tracker that breaks down which races are in play and explains how it labels candidates. Researchers there also note that explicit denialist messaging has often flopped with general-election voters, a performance gap that has already nudged some campaigns to dial back their rhetoric in public.
Arizona, a perennial presidential swing state, is one of the hottest testing grounds. Republicans there have lined up election-skeptic candidates for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, a slate that local reporters say could reshape how the state responds to federal election inquiries. Cronkite News reports that Rep. Andy Biggs, who voted against certifying the 2020 results while in Congress, is among the better-known contenders in the governor's race. The shadow of 2020 still hangs over these contests. During efforts to overturn Georgia's outcome, former President Donald Trump pressed Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find 11,780 votes," according to a recording obtained by The Washington Post.
Recent cycles suggest that running openly as an election denier is usually a losing bet in closely divided states. As NPR has reported, Republican secretary-of-state candidates who denied the 2020 result tended to underperform other GOP nominees in key battlegrounds. At the same time, States United Action estimates that this denialist penalty is roughly three percentage points. That kind of math helps explain why there are fewer outright denialist statewide candidates in 2026 than in earlier cycles, even as their campaigns remain carefully clustered in the places that matter most for the Electoral College.
"The election denier movement still represents a tiny, tiny minority of the country," Brendan Fischer, who studies threats to elections at the Campaign Legal Center, told NPR. His warning comes with a twist, though. Fischer and other experts say a relatively small but well-organized network of activists, advocacy outfits and deep-pocketed coalitions can still pull the debate toward fringe legal theories and pressure lawmakers to rewrite election rules. The Campaign Legal Center and other watchdogs argue that these networks are punching above their weight in shaping election-administration proposals this year.
What Voters Should Watch
Voters and observers are keeping close tabs on secretary-of-state and gubernatorial races in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Whoever wins those jobs will have significant influence over audits, voter-file maintenance and how certifications are handled once the ballots are cast. The Brennan Center's guide to certification notes that most states treat certification as a ministerial duty and lays out the legal guardrails and fallback options if officials refuse to sign off on results, while also warning that gaps in state law can still be exploited. In previous standoffs, local courts and state election officials have stepped in, and similar legal fights could determine whether those safeguards hold in 2026.
For now, the numbers tell a paradoxical story. Voters often punish explicit election denial at the ballot box, yet denialist candidates are still positioning themselves for roles that could shape post-election procedures if they manage to win. Watchdogs and election administrators say the most immediate backstop is not a dramatic new reform but rather careful local administration, clear statutory timelines and courts ready to enforce them as the primaries and the general election close in.
