Indeed, the Lone Star State had more current GOP nominees for the U.S. House seats who claim the election was stolen than any other state, according to the Post. In total, 24 House candidates from Texas have made that claim, while Georgia came in second with 10.
Further, the newspaper identified six more Texas Republican House nominees who didn't specifically call the 2020 race rigged, but nonetheless are running on platforms of tightening voting rules despite a lack of evidence of widespread fraud.
The Post report examines the refusal of Republican primary winners nationwide to back away from Trump's repeatedly debunked claims that fraud cost him the election. The candidates' repetition of the falsehoods shows that "election denialism has become a price of admission in most Republican primaries," the story notes.
Further, the analysis cautions that many of the GOP election deniers now running for office are "overt in their intention" to change the outcome of future political contests.
“These officeholders are so important,” Joanna Lydgate — the head of fair-elections nonprofit States United Democracy Center — told the Post. “They are going to be the ones on whose backs our democracy survives or doesn’t.”
Texas' Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both included in the Post's list of election deniers, championed the Texas Legislature's controversial overhaul of the state's voting rules, which yielded confusion and rejected ballots in elections this year.
Meanwhile, the State Bar of Texas last month filed a professional misconduct lawsuit against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton for his widely ridiculed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential elections in four battleground states.
As evidence of new Republican nominees' interest in meddling in future elections, the Post story singles out Keith Self, who won the nomination to represent a Dallas-area district after the incumbent withdrew.
In an interview, Self told the paper he wants to serve on the House Administration Committee, which oversees elections. He declined to reveal specifics of his plans, noting that they would depend on the results of the November midterms.
“My focus is protecting states’ rights in running elections,” Self told the Post.
Closer to home, the report highlighted Monica De La Cruz, who tried to contest her failed 2020 U.S. house bid by parroting Trump's lies about mail-ballot fraud. De La Cruz is once again the Republican nominee for a district that runs from east of San Antonio to the U.S.-Mexico border.Stay on top of San Antonio news and views. Sign up for our Weekly Headlines Newsletter.
