There are even more in the congress than in January 2021
Nobody should get too cocky. They’re still there and I think it’s fair to say they have not changed their minds.
For all the talk about Trump-endorsed election deniers losing races all over the country, that’s not the whole story.
Shockingly, given the message of moderation from voters in the midterms, there are 145 election deniers in the new Republican House caucus, six more than the 139 who objected to the counting of the 2020 votes in the current Congress. Their ranks are up in the Senate, too, with Trump courtiers winning in Ohio and North Carolina.
They are poised to have an outsized influence on the GOP in Congress, sowing chaos and weaponizing their power to exact concessions from hapless leaders who are too weak to hold them off, and too beholden to the former president to stand their ground against the MAGA invasion.
“Insurrectionists willing to be insurrectionists even after the violence of Jan. 6 makes you wonder what they want to do with that power if there’s another Trump candidacy. You have to hope they act responsibly, but they may not,” says Ned Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University who specializes in U.S. elections.
The lame duck session currently underway could be the last gasp of sanity before the craziness takes hold. Passing the Electoral Reform Count Act of 2022 is critical, says Foley, to prevent another Jan. 6 in 2025—should Trump or some other MAGA-backed candidate be unhappy with the outcome. The reform significantly raises the bar for legislators to lodge an objection, and it takes governors out of the equation, a reform that eliminates the risk posed if an election denier like Kari Lake took office.
There are still plenty of wingnut governors too.