Amid the noise of the 2026 midterms — mid-decade redistricting, President Trump’s slipping approval and Democrats’ hopes to regain the House and possibly the Senate — a quieter but consequential story is unfolding about who will administer future elections.
A new analysis from States United Action, shared with NPR before its release, finds that candidates who have denied the 2020 results are running for offices that directly shape election administration in 23 states, including five presidential swing states. Those offices typically include secretary of state, governor (in states where the governor helps oversee or certify elections) and attorney general.
This year 39 states are holding elections for at least one statewide position that interacts with elections. States United identified at least 53 candidates in the current cycle who meet its definition of an “election denier.” That definition uses five criteria, among them whether a candidate falsely asserts that Trump was the rightful winner in 2020 or supported efforts to overturn or undermine results after audits and legal challenges were completed.
Secretaries of state, often seen as administrative roles, became frontline figures in 2020 when officials faced intense pressure from the former president and his allies. Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, resisted requests to “find” 11,780 votes, and Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, faced armed protesters at her home in the weeks after voting ended. Both Georgia and Michigan will elect new secretaries of state and governors this year, and both states have candidates in those races who have denied the 2020 results.
Arizona — a key battleground in recent cycles — has election deniers running for all three critical statewide positions, the analysis shows. The state’s 2020 experience included pressure from Trump on then-Gov. Doug Ducey to interfere in certification; this year, leading GOP gubernatorial contender Rep. Andy Biggs voted against certifying the 2020 results in Congress and has been reported to have explored other ways to challenge the outcome.
States United’s CEO Joanna Lydgate said the organization aims to give voters clear information about where candidates stand on the integrity of elections and whether they accept the rules of a free and fair process. She noted past occasions when state officials from both parties pushed back against efforts to interfere with results and stressed the importance of electing officials who defend the system.
Compared with recent cycles, the number of election deniers running in statewide races this year is lower. Lydgate and other analysts say many candidates have learned that denying election results can be a poor strategy in competitive contests. An NPR review after the 2022 midterms found that Republican secretary-of-state hopefuls who denied 2020 generally underperformed other GOP candidates in competitive states; States United’s separate estimate put the electoral “penalty” for election denial at roughly three percentage points.
Still, denialist candidates remain more common in states Trump won by large margins and in crowded primaries where courting Trump’s endorsement matters. Brendan Fischer of the Campaign Legal Center warns that an organized “election denial infrastructure” developed after 2020, one that continues to push false theories about voting and promote policies based on that misinformation. He described the movement as a small minority nationally but an energized and active force within Republican politics that candidates and lawmakers feel compelled to respond to.
The presence of such candidates for offices that certify and enforce election law has implications beyond 2026. Control of these roles can shape how future contests are run, challenged and certified — including presidential elections in 2028 and beyond.