In Nevada, the most extreme election deniers running for Congress were eliminated in the June primary, but two Republicans running for federal office—one for the Senate and one for the House—have spread lies or conspiracies about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election or raised doubts about the integrity of that and subsequent elections. They are:
- Sam Brown | Senate
A war veteran who narrowly escaped death in Afghanistan, Sam Brown won the crowded GOP primary on June 11 after losing his first bid for the Senate in 2022. Backed by the governor, the Republican National Committee, and at the nth hour, by Trump as well, he has kept his eye on the general election by carefully distancing himself from his more extreme MAGA primary opponents, including election deniers Jeff Gunter, Ronda Kennedy, Jim Marchant (founder of the America First Secretary of State Coalition), and Stephanie Phillips. Still, Brown’s own campaign site highlights the need for “election integrity” and stricter voter ID laws, suggesting that “fraudulent” votes have canceled out “real” ones in Nevada and that it should be “harder to cheat” at voting. During a Senate primary debate in 2022, Brown expressed skepticism about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election and implied that “noncitizens” had voted in Nevada elections (which is a felony and untrue, according to the Republican secretary of state). - John Lee | House (NV–4)
After the 2020 presidential election, several posts on John Lee’s Twitter and Facebook accounts promoted various election fraud conspiracies. In 2021, when he was mayor of North Las Vegas and running for governor, he said in an interview with Breitbart—which pointed out that Lee is a former Democrat who switched parties—that he would “make election integrity a priority” if he were elected governor, and agreed with the host that Nevada saw “all sorts of issues” during the 2020 election.