New from the Brennan Center:
Recent developments in election official races, including an analysis of the most recent campaign finance data available for secretary of state races in the states in our sample, reveal some key trends.
- Money is flowing into secretary of state races at a rate not seen in recent memory. Across the six battleground states we are tracking, candidates have collectively raised $13.3 million, more than two and a half times the $4.7 million raised by the analogous point in the 2018 cycle, and more than five times that of 2014.
- New data in secretary of state contests reveals election deniers in Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada either in the lead or running a close second in fundraising. On the other hand, candidates who have condemned election denial have overwhelming fundraising leads so far in Michigan and Minnesota.
- Illustrating the nationalization of secretary of state races, national groups and donors are spending to influence them, including Donald Trump’s leadership PAC and others with ties to efforts to challenge the 2020 result. On the other side, several national liberal groups are newly becoming active in secretary of state and local races to support opponents of the Big Lie.
- Donors who have not given to secretary of state candidates before are making major contributions with a clear pattern of support for election denial candidates or for candidates who are running on the threat election denial poses to democracy.
- Election denial claims, as well as claims that it is an existential threat to democracy, are heating up at the state level, and they are also showing up in more local election official contests, notably in Georgia and Nevada. Super PACs on both sides of the issue spent to influence local races in Wisconsin in April. In those elections, of the six candidates supported by outside messaging casting doubt on the last election, five won office, and three of those unseated incumbents.