Report finds hundreds of election-denying Republicans involved in swing-state election processes

Plus, two Minnesota Republican statehouse candidates make headlines with anti-LGBTQ+ hate.

A new report by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reveals that hundreds of election-denying Republicans in key swing states are involved in electoral races, state party leadership and county-level election boards. 

Those states are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Per the report, the breakdown of the 239 election deniers involved in the eight swing states are: 

• 50 Republican congressional candidates running for the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate 
• 6 Republican candidates running for state executive offices 
• 102 sitting state and county election administration officials 
• 81 leaders of state and county GOP organizations

Considering how close the margins of the 2024 presidential election are expected to be, such dynamics could prove especially chaotic. 

“The nightmare scenario is that they’ll hold up certification. They’ll force state officers to go to court to compel them to certify the results while they spread disinformation about widespread voter fraud and non-citizen voting,” CMD executive director Arn Pearson told The Guardian. 

“The big threat is that this will create a similar, or even more heightened atmosphere of the sort that led to the January 6 insurrection.”

A Minnesota House candidate has declined to renounce his previous employer, a Christian group counseling organization that advised clients to avoid same-sex relationships. Caleb Steffenhagen, a Republican running to represent District 48B, was once employed by Dangerous Men United, which according to Axios is a “Minnesota-based men's group focused on living free of ‘lust’ and porn that has also counseled members against same-sex attraction.” 

The Dangerous Men United’s handbook states that to begin “the process of lust-free living," one must "renounce all homosexual thoughts, urges, drives, and acts and renounce all ways that Satan has used these things to pervert my relationships." The manual also encourages those “struggling” with same-sex attraction to seek organizations that “help people wanting to leave homosexuality."

But Steffenhagen, who is a middle school teacher in Chaska, Minn., explained that these beliefs would not impact his actions as a politician.

"As an individual, I believe in freedom," Steffenhagen said. "So if that's the lifestyle you want to live, I don't like it when the government steps in and makes rules upon rules."

However, Steffengagen stopped short of distancing himself from DMU, saying they "really empowered me to love people in a different way and view people in a different way with mercy and grace."

This wasn’t the only unsettling take to come from the Minnesota GOP recently: An audio clip of Erica Schwartz, who is running to represent House District 18A, shows her comparing the promotion of LGBTQ+ rights by public schools and the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party to that of Nazi Germany. 

“They’re promoting all this transgender. You know, when I walk into my baby’s school, my kid’s school, I see that pride flag everywhere. Posters everywhere, hallways … But they took away the American flag,” Schwartz continued. 

However, unlike Steffenhagen, Schwartz rescinded her comments in a statement to the Minnesota Reformer. 

“As a brand new candidate, I made an inartful comment trying to highlight some of the reasons I ran for office: my deep concern about the one-party control in Minnesota, and the increasingly hostile political environment where free speech is under attack and Americans are divided against each other. I regret making that comparison and will be better in the future about being more precise with my words,” Schwartz said.