BIG LIE GETTING BIGGER

Nevada Candidates Who Back Election Lies Scoop Up Republican Nominations

Nevada’s Republican picks for Senate and secretary of state have both pushed baseless claims about the 2020 election.

After taking a bruising at recent Jan. 6 committee hearings, the Big Lie got a boost with Republican nominations in Nevada this week. Adam Laxalt—a Trump-backed former state attorney general who has promoted unfounded claims about the 2020 election—scooped up the GOP nomination for the state’s pivotal U.S. Senate seat on Wednesday. He’ll now try to defeat vulnerable incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto in November in a race that could see Republicans seize control of the Senate. Elsewhere, Jim Marchant—a QAnon-linked candidate who lost a congressional bid in 2020—won his party’s nomination for the state’s top election official. Trump loyalist Marchant clinched the Republican nomination for secretary of state in Nevada after previously declaring that he’d been the victim of voter fraud, despite failing to produce evidence. He also supported sending a pro-Trump slate of electors to Congress in 2020 after Joe Biden won the state and, in January, he said do the same in 2024.