On May 4, 2026, NPR published an exclusive analysis from States United Action, a nonprofit that has tracked candidate positions on the validity of the 2020 election since 2022. The findings: in 23 states, including five presidential swing states, at least 53 candidates who have publicly denied the results of the 2020 election are running this year for offices that will have a direct role in certifying future elections — secretary of state, governor, or attorney general.
Thirty-nine states are holding 2026 elections for these election-administering positions. States United identified election-denial qualification using five criteria, including whether candidates have falsely claimed Trump was the rightful winner of 2020 or supported efforts to undermine results after audits and legal challenges were completed. The most striking concentration is Arizona: people who deny election results are running for all three critical statewide positions (governor, secretary of state, attorney general). The current front-runner for the GOP nomination for Arizona governor, Rep. Andy Biggs, voted not to certify the 2020 results in the U.S. House (he voted yes on the objection in House roll call 10 on January 6, 2021) and, according to NPR, called a key state lawmaker at the time to look for other ways to interfere with the process. Then-Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers testified at a House committee hearing in June 2022 that Biggs called him on the morning of January 6, 2021, asking whether he would support decertifying the state's electors; Bowers said he declined. In 2020, then-Gov. Doug Ducey faced pressure from Trump to interfere in the certification process and declined.
Georgia and Michigan, both 2024 presidential battlegrounds, will elect new secretaries of state and governors this year. Both currently have election deniers in the running. In 2020, Georgia Republican SOS Brad Raffensperger declined Trump's request to “find” 11,780 votes. In Michigan, Democratic SOS Jocelyn Benson had armed protesters descend on her home in the weeks after voting ended. Both states will elect new secretaries of state and governors this year. Joanna Lydgate, States United's CEO, told NPR, “We've watched these state officials on both sides of the aisle stand up and push back when Trump has tried to interfere with elections and election results in the past. We know that they will do that again. But it's incredibly important that we elect people who believe in our system and who believe in free and fair elections.”
The denier count this cycle is down from recent cycles. Lydgate attributes that to candidates realizing election denial is a “bad campaign strategy” in competitive races. After the 2022 midterms, an NPR analysis found that Republican secretary-of-state candidates who denied the 2020 results generally underperformed other GOP candidates in competitive states, and a separate States United analysis put the penalty at roughly 3 percentage points. The deniers running anyway are concentrated in states Trump won by double digits or in crowded primaries where candidates are seeking Trump's endorsement. Brendan Fischer of the Campaign Legal Center told NPR that a powerful “election denial infrastructure” has cropped up since 2020, and said, “The election denier movement still represents a tiny, tiny minority of the country. But it is an energized and active force within Republican politics. It's an organized interest group that [Republican candidates and lawmakers] need to be at least somewhat responsive to.”
States United's own release, dated May 4, 2026 with data as of April 30, counts “at least 53 Election Deniers” running for statewide office “in 24 states so far” (35 for governor, 12 for secretary of state, 6 for attorney general), one more state than NPR's figure of 23. The release also quotes Lydgate: “Trump and his allies are hard at work to undermine this year's midterm elections, and their playbook once again includes trying to take control of the state offices that serve as a critical check on Trump's power.”
Update (October 2, 2026): States United's ElectionDeniers.org tracker, updated in September, lists Andy Biggs as having won the Republican primary for Arizona governor and counts three election deniers on Arizona's statewide ballots.
Correction (October 2, 2026): this entry attributed the roughly 3-point vote penalty for election-denying candidates to a 2022 NPR analysis; NPR's analysis found such candidates underperformed, and the 3-point estimate came from a separate States United analysis. The entry also quoted Raffensperger as refusing to “find 11,780 votes” (NPR puts only the word “find” in quotation marks), said Benson's protesters came “after voting ended” rather than in the weeks after, and included an unsourced line speculating how a Governor Biggs would act in 2028, which has been removed. The 53-candidate count is now noted as 24 states in States United's own release versus 23 in NPR's report, and the Biggs certification vote and call are now sourced to the House roll call and Rusty Bowers's testimony.