Trump's potential 2024 GOP rivals are backing election deniers too

The campaign

Trump's potential 2024 Republican rivals are backing election deniers too

“In an interview on the 'Today' show earlier this month, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley swore off campaigning for Republicans who repeat ex-president Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen,” as our colleague Isaac Arnsdorf report.

“Everybody that I’m helping acknowledges the fact that the elections, you know, were real,” Haley said.

“In fact, both before and after that interview, she has endorsed and campaigned with a slate of Senate candidates who reject or question the 2020 election results as she positions herself as a potential 2024 presidential candidate.”

• “Haley appeared at a rally Tuesday with Don Bolduc of New Hampshire, who insisted Trump won the election and President Biden was illegitimate, though he has attempted to backtrack since the primary.”
• "She also campaigned with Adam Laxalt of Nevada, who led the Trump campaign’s efforts to overturn the results in that state. And she endorsed Ted Budd of North Carolina, who as a congressman voted against certifying the electoral college results on Jan. 6, 2021."

Haley isn't the only Republican who might run in 2024 boosting election deniers ahead of the midterms.

"Former vice president Mike Pence, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan have all criticized Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and have given signals about running against him in 2024. Still, in this year’s midterm elections, they’re all campaigning with Republicans who have thoroughly embraced Trump’s lies about 2020."

The contradiction reflects just how many Republicans running this year — a majority of those running for House, Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state and attorney general — have denied or questioned the 2020 election results. And Republican candidates' stances echo the views of many of the party's voters:

• “Six in 10 Republicans and 29 percent of Americans overall say they believe Biden won only because of voter fraud, according to a Sept. 27 Monmouth University poll. The level has remained steady since the 2020 election, according to Monmouth surveys.”

Surrogates on both sides

"The array of Republican leaders who are hitting the campaign trail to help the party’s nominees while also bolstering their own profiles stands in stark contrast to a dearth of national surrogates on the Democratic side. Biden and former president Barack Obama have scheduled only a handful of campaign events, and other prominent Democrats in the Senate and Cabinet have been absent."

"Trump, as the GOP’s presumptive front-runner, has himself been active in the midterms, with rallies around the country promoting what he has called the “Trump ticket.” On Monday, he lashed out in a social media post against Joe O’Dea, the Republican candidate in Colorado who has distanced himself from Trump. 

Even Republicans who have sought to pivot to the middle since the primary, such as Nevada gubernatorial candidate Joe Lombardo and Senate candidate Blake Masters in Arizona, have enthusiastically welcomed Trump’s support at recent rallies. His next rally is Saturday in Texas.

Who Haley's backing

Haley has endorsed other Republicans who've questioned or undermined the 2020 election results.

• “In addition to Bolduc, Laxalt and Budd, Haley has also endorsed Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, who worked to keep Trump in office after the election, according to text messages obtained by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Lee voted to accept the results on Jan. 6.”
• “Haley appeared at a rally with Herschel Walker, the Senate candidate in Georgia who expressed support for overturning the 2020 result there. (Walker said in a debate last week that Biden won.)”
• “She has also endorsed six House Republicans who voted to object to the electoral college results, another House candidate who said he would have, and Wisconsin congressional candidate Derrick Van Orden, who was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6.”

“The liberal media is obsessed with the 2020 election,” Haley said in a statement. “As we travel the country, that’s not what people are talking about. The candidates we’re supporting are rightly focused on Joe Biden’s dismal leadership on the economy, the border, and crime.”

On the Hill

Study: Gun owners support gun safety provisions

A new report by a bipartisan gun safety organization found that gun owners are overwhelmingly concerned about gun violence and support a number of specific policies to reduce shootings. 

The report, commissioned by the 97percent group and conducted by Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor of public health at Tufts University, is unique in that it sought the opinion of gun owners in an attempt to measure whether this group opposes gun safety measures and backs policies that have generally been rejected as being too controversial to pass Congress. 

Siegel said in an interview that he found that the gun debate has been “oversimplified” and falsely creates a divide between gun owners and non-gun owners. 

• “I think that this is going to change the way that policymakers and the public view the terms of the debate, they're going to realize that this is not actually as controversial an issue as the NRA and other groups are making it out to be,” Siegel said.

The study comes four months after Congress passed the most expansive gun safety legislation in more than two decades, but also left a lot of room for more to be done. 

The study found that nine out of 10 gun owners are not a member of a gun rights group, such as the National Rifle Association or the more far-right Gun Owners of America. Both groups have political clout among federal lawmakers and are often the voice of the anti-gun control position. Fifty-three percent of gun owners don't support the NRA or do just “a little bit," according to the report. 

• The study also found that a large majority of gun owners support specific policy positions, including 69 percent who support red flag laws. That support increased to 81 percent when the red flag law included a fine for people who intentionally lie to avoid a person being flagged.

The study, which polled 1078 gun owners and held 96 focus groups, also found that a large majority of gun owners -- 80 percent -- support a ban on gun ownership for people who commit a violent misdemeanor. Current law bans guns for people who commit a felony. 

Most gun owners did not, however, support banning types of weapons or ammunition, including an assault weapons. 

“The vast majority of people agree with certain points,” said Matthew Littman, executive director of 97Percent, which says its mission is to find policy areas where gun owners and non-gun owners agree and whose leadership includes former Republican and Democratic congressman. “We're proving to people that this is where the vast majority are. And we want people to know that and we wanted their actions to reflect that.”

The group found that the policies that would reduce gun violence the most and have the most support include red flag laws, background checks and gun limits for violent misdemeanors. The report says it these policies would reduce homicides by guns by 28 percent and the suicide rate by 6.7 percent, which would have saved 7,500 lives in 2021. 

What's next: The group in the next several weeks plans to put forward a detailed policy platform it says will reduce gun violence and would have the overwhelming support of the public. 

What we're watching

President Biden is expected to announce the release of 15 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve today. The move, which will ease the price at the pump, comes three weeks before the midterm elections.

At the White House

Party gatherings give a window into Biden’s mind, from nukes to Pelosi

The musings of Joe Biden: “Biden has a favorite line, one meant to show he knows that the combination of his voice and a microphone may get him into trouble. ‘No one ever doubts I mean what I say,’ he’ll say. ‘The problem is I sometimes say all that I mean,’” our colleague Matt Viser reports.

• “There are few venues in which he says all that he means more than at Democratic Party fundraisers, when the audience is friendly and his guard is down. In just the past few weeks, Biden has told donors that Trump and his followers are verging on ‘semi-fascism.’ He warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions are risking nuclear ‘Armageddon.’ He derided the Supreme Court as an ‘advocacy group.’ He called Pakistan a highly dangerous country, and he suggested Italy is sliding into authoritarianism.”
• “All these colorful remarks were delivered in the cozy confines of political fundraisers, where cameras are not allowed, but reporters with notebooks are. The events, whose frequency has accelerated sharply ahead of the midterm elections, provide the closest thing to unvarnished views from the commander in chief.”

The Media

Early reeeads

• Whites now more likely to die from covid than Blacks: Why the pandemic shifted. By The Post’s Akilah Johnson and Dan Keating.
• How DeSantis used Disney’s missteps to wage war on corporate America. By The Post’s Michael Kranish.
• At fiery debate, Rubio opposes gun measure he championed after Parkland. By The Post’s Hannah Knowles and Mariana Alfaro.
• What’s on the Minds of 12 Young Voters. By the New York Times.
• Don Bolduc is having it both ways with Senate majority at stake. By Politico's Natalie Allison.
• Hispanic voters could be ‘key’ in competitive Vega-Spanberger race. By The Post’s Meagan Flynn.
• Gisele Fetterman, forging on through her husband’s heated Senate race. By The Post’s Maura Judkis.
• Biden kicks off Democrats’ final sprint focusing on one theme: Abortion. By The Post’s Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Tyler Pager.
• Md. governor candidate’s pitch to fight poverty: Trust funds for babies. By The Post’s Erin Cox.
• Steele dossier source acquitted, in loss for special counsel Durham. By The Post’s Salvador Rizzo, Rachel Weiner and Perry Stein.
• New Woodward audiobook shows Trump knew Kim letters were classified. By The Post’s Ashley Parker.
• The Fed, staring down two big choices, charts an aggressive path. By the New York Times’s Jeanna Smialek.

Viral

📚 What we’re reading: ‘Unchecked’ by Rachael Bade and Karoun Demirjian

Thanks for reading. You can also follow us on Twitter: @LACaldwellDC and @theodoricmeyer.