Election denier claims Arizona GOP secretary of state nomination
Developed over time first seen 3 months ago
Arizona state representative and attorney Alexander Kolodin won the Republican nomination for Arizona secretary of state, defeating former state GOP chair Gina Swoboda. He will face Democratic incumbent Adrian Fontes in November for the post responsible for overseeing elections in a politically competitive state, making the contest significant ahead of the 2028 presidential election.
Kolodin has promoted unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the 2020 election and helped pursue unsuccessful challenges to Arizona’s 2020 and 2022 results. The Arizona State Bar sanctioned him over his work on two 2020 election cases that courts found baseless, including one seeking to overturn Joe Biden’s Arizona victory.
- Kolodin won Arizona’s Republican secretary of state nomination.
- He will challenge Democratic incumbent Adrian Fontes in November.
- His election-related legal work previously led to bar sanctions.
New here? Start with this
Arizona's secretary of state is the official who oversees elections in the state, including certifying results and maintaining voter rolls, which makes the role unusually consequential in a state that was a key battleground in the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump narrowly lost Arizona that year, and the result was followed by lawsuits, recounts and persistent claims from Trump and his allies, without evidence accepted by courts, that the vote had been rigged against him.
Since then, a number of Republican candidates who publicly backed those claims, often called election deniers, have sought positions that would give them influence over how future elections are run and certified. Their campaigns have been closely watched because critics warn that installing sympathetic officials in these roles could affect how a close election is handled in future, while supporters argue these candidates are simply pushing for stricter election security.
Arizona has been one of the most closely fought states in recent presidential elections, so control of its secretary of state office carries added significance nationally as well as locally. A candidate who denies the legitimacy of the 2020 result winning the Republican nomination for this post would therefore be seen as a notable marker of how strongly those views persist within the party, ahead of future elections in the state.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters of such a candidate argue that raising questions about election administration, however unpopular, is a legitimate exercise of free speech and civic duty, and that voters are entitled to choose someone who promises rigorous audits, tighter voter-ID rules and greater transparency in how ballots are counted and certified. They contend that dismissing a candidate simply for scepticism about past results, rather than debating the merits of their proposed reforms, is itself an attempt to narrow democratic choice, and that only voters, not commentators or rival officials, should decide who is fit to run elections.
The case against
Critics argue that the office of secretary of state carries direct responsibility for certifying elections, and that a nominee who has disputed the legitimacy of past results without substantiated evidence risks undermining public confidence in future ones, regardless of intent. They contend that safeguarding the impartial administration of elections is a foundational democratic value that transcends partisan preference, and that placing an unconvinced overseer in charge of the very process they have questioned invites conflicts of interest and further erosion of trust in outcomes, win or lose.
More coverage
- Politico — The top of Arizona’s GOP ticket is littered with 2020 election deniers
- The Hill — Arizona Senate president who gave 2020 election records to FBI wins attorney general GOP primary
Read the full article at the source →
Originally published by The Hill as “2020 election denier wins GOP primary for secretary of state in Arizona ”.