Republican who believes 2020 election was stolen announces Senate bid in top battleground state
Cami Mondeaux
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High-profile 2020 election denier Jim Marchant will run for Senate in Nevada, seeking to unseat Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) in what is expected to be one of the most competitive races in 2024.
Marchant’s campaign comes after the very conservative candidate lost his bid to be Nevada’s secretary of state last year while running on a platform that promoted former President Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Marchant has long been an ally of Trump and has described himself as a “MAGA conservative” who would “specifically focus on election integrity.”
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“There’s nothing more precious than our freedom and personal liberty,” Marchant said at an event on Tuesday. “And I’m running for United States Senate to protect Nevadans from the overbearing government, from Silicon Valley, from big media, from labor unions, from the radical gender-change advocates.”
Marchant is the first major Republican candidate to announce a bid to unseat Rosen, who was first elected to the Senate in 2018.
Nevada is expected to be one of the most competitive battleground states in 2024 after the Senate race between Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and election denier Adam Laxalt became the closest race during the 2022 midterm elections.
Marchant rose to national prominence after running for a House seat in 2020 and was endorsed by prominent conservatives such as Trump and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), and by the House Freedom Caucus.
He later formed the America First Secretary of State Coalition during the 2022 cycle that sought to elevate candidates for secretary of state who backed Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. All but one candidate lost their respective races.
Marchant has indicated his Senate campaign won’t focus on the 2020 election, although the Republican candidate stopped short of saying whether he trusted the results.
“I have serious doubts,” Marchant told the Associated Press after his announcement. “I’ve been on record for a long time trying to prove how the election, I believe, was not up-and-up. I think it was probably stolen. There were a lot of ways they were able to figure out how to manipulate the system.”
There are a total of 34 Senate seats up for grabs in the 2024 election cycle. Of these, Democrats must defend 23, compared to just 11 for Republicans. The circumstances put Republicans in a strong position to flip some crucial Senate seats that could easily shift the current balance of power in the upper chamber.
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Democrats currently hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate, with the advantage of having Vice President Kamala Harris as a tiebreaker vote if needed.
As a result, Republicans only need to flip one Senate seat to win the majority should they win back the White House in 2024. If they don’t regain the Oval Office, the party only needs to secure two extra Senate seats.