Election denial has become characteristic of President Donald Trump’s political movement, with him and his allies consistently promoting conspiracy theories to explain away their electoral losses. The latest example has involved Republican claims that the Los Angeles mayoral primary was stolen. Now, MAGA lawmakers in Washington State have begun leveraging conspiracies about California elections to attack their own state’s mail-in-voting system in an effort that even a former state GOP chair has called baseless.
According to the Seattle Times, “The latest conspiracy theories center on California’s slow vote-counting. Like Washington, California counts ballots postmarked by Election Day, often requiring several days before final results in close races are known. Election-night results in Los Angeles showed Spencer Pratt, a conservative former reality TV star, potentially advancing past the primary to face Mayor Karen Bass. But as more ballots were counted, progressive City Council member Nithya Raman surged into second place, securing a November matchup against Bass.”
The Times notes that this outcome wasn’t surprising given Los Angeles’ strongly Democratic demographics, “but some conservative media influencers who had pumped up Pratt’s chances have questioned the outcome, egged on by President Donald Trump and trillionaire Elon Musk.”
Now, “the state GOP has repeatedly amplified claims that the California election was rigged and asserted that Washington’s similar mail-in ballot system is also corrupt. The party shared a post from an online conservative influencer known as ‘Libs of TikTok’ claiming ‘They just cheated in an election right in front of our eyes.’ Another post shared by the state GOP asserted the California election was clearly fraudulent even if it can’t be proven.” This comes amidst a months-long campaign by Washington State GOP officials trying to argue that the state’s vote-by-mail program is corrupt, “even as the party tries to convince its voters to cast ballots this fall for its preferred candidates.”
“Mail-in ballots are how blue states cheat and win elections,” the party claimed on X last week, saying it’s been going on “at least since 2004” when a Republican candidate lost a historically close race. When asked by the Seattle Times what evidence there was of untrustworthy mail-in voting, current state GOP Chair Jim Walsh “also cited the 2004 race, and a 2019 Seattle City Council election in which Kshama Sawant, a socialist, surged in late vote counts to win reelection after lagging far behind on Election Day.”
He went on to tie the LA election to his claims, saying, “The recent, statistically unlikely post-Election Day results on the Los Angeles mayoral primary are not directly relevant to Washington elections, of course. But they have raised concerns about election integrity generally.”
“The state GOP has even questioned Gov. Bob Ferguson’s election, claiming in a post on X that he ‘wouldn’t be gov’ if the state voted in person with ID instead of via mail,” writes the Times. “The party offered no evidence to support the claim. Ferguson defeated Republican Dave Reichert by more than 430,000 votes in 2024, continuing a 40-year winning streak for Democrats.”
But not all state GOP officials are on board with the conspiracy claims. State Republican Party Chair Chris Vance — who oversaw the controversial 2004 race — told his fellow officials to “Put up or shut up” in a recent op-ed.
According to the Times, “He said Republicans documented plenty of mistakes in the 2004 election, including ballots cast in the names of deceased voters and by ineligible felons. But, Vance said, they found zero evidence of a fraud scheme carried out by Democrats.”
“You couldn’t have looked harder than we did,” he said. “There has never been a scintilla of evidence of organized fraud out there that actually makes a difference in an election.” He went on to assert that his party’s parroting of “insane conspiracy theory nonsense” is only hurting its electoral chances in the state.
“This is red meat for the MAGA part of his party,” said Secretary of State Steve Hobbs. “But I will tell you most of the Republican legislators know we have a good system.”