Claims without evidence of attempts to “steal” the election from Republican US Senate candidates in Arizona and Nevada have surfaced online despite the candidate exceeding expectations in both races.
Republicans took control of the Senate on the back of a decisive presidential election victory by President-elect Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump looks poised to win the popular vote and has won all the swing states he has called so far.
As of Thursday afternoon, Republicans had a 53-seat majority in the Senate with two seats in Arizona and Nevada still up for grabs, according to the Associated Press. The presidential elections in Arizona and Nevada have also not been called, although Trump has a clear lead in both states.
In Arizona, Democratic U.S. Representative Ruben Gallego led Republican Kari Lake on Thursday by more than 50,000 voters, or about 2 percent of the total vote. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen leads by more than 13,000 votes in Nevada, about 0.9 percent of the vote.
ALEJANDRA RUBIO/AFP; REBECCA NOBLE/AFP via Getty Images
While the final results are far from certain, it is clear that the Republican candidates in both states did better than the polls suggested. Most pre-election polls show the Democratic candidate with a comfortable lead, including some surveys that suggest a double advantage.
Regardless, conspiracy theorists have taken to social media to make baseless claims that the Republican candidate’s losses must be the result of fraud.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the campaign of Brown, Rosen, Lake and Gallego via email Friday afternoon.
Robert Beadles, a businessman and right-wing activist with a history of pursuing baseless claims of election fraud, wrote that he “can’t wait for the investigation and prosecution of all election fraud in Nevada to begin” on Thursday. post for X, formerly Twitter.
Beadles was claimed later post that the reason Brown behind Rosen was mysterious “they” have “flooded the system with enough illegal votes after the election took the lead.”
“Prominent Nevada election denialist Robert Beadles claims without evidence ‘he’ stole the Senate race from Republican Sam Brown – showing the process of legally counting the ballots,” wrote Reno, Nevada reporter Ben Margiott in response to Beadles. “It is unclear why ‘they’ also allowed Trump to win.
Similar unsubstantiated claims were made about Lake’s race against Gallego in Arizona. Mike Adams, a self-proclaimed “Health Ranger” described by Chicago Health magazine as a trafficker “in conspiracies and additions,” said without evidence that the “fraud” was “obvious.”
“Clear fraud in Arizona needs to be challenged in court, NOW. Senate seat at stake,” Adams wrote in X. “And there is more fraud in House seats, in other states. Dems always steal down vote races. in the days after the election .”
None of the Senate candidates in Arizona and Nevada appeared to support claims of “stolen” elections. Even Lake, who followed up his support for Trump’s false 2020 election fraud claims by launching baseless claims about his loss in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election, has yet to make any claims of fraud in the hours and days after this year’s election.
“There is a very loyal band of election deniers who believe the Dems stole the Senate races in Nevada and Arizona but somehow forgot to steal the presidency,” wrote senior Politico legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney.
