Nearly half of all GOP nominees for Senate, governor and elections chief are election deniers

All across the country, Republican candidates who openly doubt the outcome of the 2020 election are running in statewide elections. This includes Republican nominees for both U.S. Senate races as well as gubernatorial elections, and even candidates seeking to oversee their respective state's elections.

CNN found that of the 51 Republican statewide hopefuls on the 2024 ballot, 23 of them — a full 45% of all Republican statewide candidates – are election deniers. And many election deniers are seeking office in some of the most hotly contested battleground states in presidential elections.

34 states are holding U.S. Senate elections in November. And 14 Republican Senate candidates have gone on the record supporting election-denying narratives. This includes incumbents like Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) and Rick Scott (R-Florida) as well as candidates seeking to oust Democrats like Sam Brown in Nevada, Kari Lake in Arizona, Bernie Moreno in Ohio and Royce White in Minnesota.

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Governors also play an important role in safeguarding elections by signing Electoral College certificates after their respective states' electors meet following a presidential election. In the event a far-right election denier becomes governor, it's possible a legislature may have to intervene in order to make sure electoral college certificates get signed.

This possibility has become a concern for many former governors, who recently co-signed an open letter to current governors urging them to certify their states' Electoral College certificates following the November election. Co-signers include former Governors Jeb Bush (R-Florida), Tom Corbett (R-Pennsylvania), Gray Davis (D-California), Jim Hodges (D-South Carolina) and Mark Schweiker (R-Pennsylvania), among others.

"We write as bipartisan former Governors with an eye to December 11th. This is the deadline for issuing and sending Certificates of Ascertainment to the National Archives. This is six days before the Electoral College will meet in state capitals across our nation," the letter read. "While there is much to debate on the campaign trail, we expect all candidates and the American people will agree that this time-honored process during our post-election period is not open for debate. It is simply a ministerial and administrative duty."

Some of the more notable election deniers running for governor include Mike Braun in Indiana, Greg Gianforte in Montana, Mike Kehoe in Missouri, Patrick Morrisey in West Virginia and Mark Robinson in North Carolina. While four of those states are reliably red, North Carolina is regarded as a battleground state, with both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in a dead heat. Robinson is currently trailing Democrat Josh Stein – the current attorney general — in the gubernatorial race by double digits.

READ MORE: Mark Robinson on track for 'largest defeat in more than 40 years' of any NC gov candidate

Perhaps the most dangerous office for an election denier to hold is secretary of state, which in most states is the official tasked with overseeing the conducting of all elections. Republican candidates who have gone on record casting doubt on the result of the 2020 election include Denny Hoskins in Missouri, Dennis Linthicum in Oregon, H. Brooke Paige in Vermont and Kris Warner in West Virginia.

Hoskins and Warner are heavily favored to win given their states' strong Republican leanings. After winning the Missouri Republican primary in August, Hoskins insinuated President Joe Biden was not the true winner of the 2020 election, saying: "[W]e have to ensure that none of the electoral fraud that took place in 2020 and stole the election from President Trump happens here."

According to CNN, Hoskins has also urged supporters to watch convicted felon Dinesh D'Souza's debunked film "2000 Mules," which baselessly suggests that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump via ballot drop boxes in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan. He is running against Democratic state representative Barbara Phifer in November.

Click here to read CNN's report in its entirety.

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