The Arizona Republican Party continues to deny President-elect Joe Biden victory in the Grand Canyon state, even after its eleven voters for Biden voted and sent the certification to Congress on Dec. 14.
As a result, the divide between the activist, the right-wing faction and the establishment moderated by the Republican State Party amid unfounded accusations of electoral fraud by some Republicans and allies is widening. of Trump, accusations that have been dismissed by judges in several court cases.
The clash within the Republican party is unlikely to dissipate any time soon, and such opposing stances, such as challenging Biden’s victory, within the party may even be a political strategy to energize some groups of voters, experts say.
“This election is far from over,” Arizona GOP president Kelli Ward said in a video posted to Twitter Tuesday morning. “Anyone who tells you differently, whether in the media, whether with Democrats talking or with the Republican establishment, is just avoiding the facts.”
But when it comes to facts, the nation’s top lawyer disagreed. The Justice Department found no evidence of widespread electoral fraud that tipped the results of the presidential election, Attorney General William Barr said.
Arizona voters generally split tickets; voting for Biden and Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly at the top of the ballot and re-electing Republicans to the ballot. All claims filed by the party or allies of the president have been expelled in the courts and now the party conducts audits through the power of summons enacted by members of the Republican-led state legislature.
Ward won office in 2019 after two statewide losses in Republican primaries for U.S. Senate seats against the late Sen. John McCain and former Sen. Martha McSally.
He has been challenging elections in failed battles in the hall and has criticized fellow Republicans, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who has defended the state’s electoral integrity in the face of the retreat of Ward and President Donald Trump.
Despite Monday’s vote at Electoral College by Biden, Trump, who is Trump’s voter, and other Republican Party voters in Arizona still met to broadcast unofficial votes for the president and 27 members of the Arizona state legislature wrote a joint resolution calling on Congress to accept those votes, rather than those signed and certified by Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.
James Strickland, an associate professor of political science at Arizona State University, said Republicans’ insistence on challenging election results could be a political strategy for future elections.
“There seems to be a lot of people within the party who really have questions about electoral processes, but filing demands can also be an electoral strategy for 2022 and 2024,” Strickland said of election fraud claims. “Doing so may allow party officials to state that they are pursuing all available options, thus encouraging donors and other supporters to remain involved and, most importantly, to vote in future elections.”
“Angry voters usually show up,” he added. “If indeed the party leadership pursues allegations of fraud to achieve political gain, this would suggest that they believe that a sufficiently considerable part of their supporters will appreciate and reward these efforts.”
The president has used his battles in the room as a massive fundraising mechanism after the election. The Trump campaign and the Republican Party have raised at least $ 170 million since election day, ABC News reported on Dec. 1.
Arizona-based Republican strategist Chuck Coughlin said allegations of election fraud have created a difficult path for members who do not support those claims.
“They have clung to this issue of electoral fraud which is a presidential narrative that goes back to the Iowa primaries. When [Trump] lost against Ted Cruz, he said he is not willing to accept any election result that he does not win, ”Coughlin said.
As in other battlefield states across the country, challenges to election results in Arizona are driven by false claims of apparent fraud. Republicans recently had a victory after the state Senate Judiciary Committee cited Maricopa County to conduct a forensic audit of its voting machines and two recent lawsuits filed by Arizona courts have been appealed. , one in the United States Supreme Court and the other in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Overall, Trump and his allies filed nearly 60 lawsuits as part of the effort to overturn election results, almost all of which were dismissed by judges, often with sentences handed down. In Arizona alone, at least six lawsuits were filed. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Texas-led, Trump-backed candidacy to cast votes from four swing states, a significant blow to the effort to get the courts to overturn election results. Secretaries of state across the country told ABC News last month that there was no evidence of widespread election fraud, and that post-election audits of voting machines returned tiny differences in the vote count.
Despite the lack of success in the courts, dissent in the ranks continued to grow after Ducey’s involvement in the Arizona election certification process.
According to Coughlin, such battles are not uncommon in Arizona. He said there is a faction of the party that “has been constantly anti-establishment, libertarian-leaning Republicans who dominate privileged politics.”
“It’s the close Republican base from which it operates. And elected officials who don’t have a broader support base are vulnerable to that. McCain was the only one who could stand it, and no one else has. had that kind of broad-based support. Clearly the governor doesn’t have that, ”he said.
Ducey has wiped out the anger of Trump, who publicly wondered on Twitter what the governor’s “rush” was to certify the results. The governor became a target for Trump and his allies after Arizona’s election certification. All 15 counties in Arizona, led by Republicans and Democrats, examined and certified their own elections, which were sent to Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and her statewide auditing office. Only then, weeks after the Nov. 30 election, did Ducey participate in a statewide certification of results alongside Hobbs and Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
While Ducey certified the results, a meeting led by Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis continued to cast doubt on the election. It was attended by some recently re-elected state lawmakers and members of Congress, including Reps Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, who were presented with baseless conspiracy theories about electoral fraud in Arizona.
Coughlin said it’s no wonder the party has directed its criticism of Ducey in light of Trump’s loss.
“There’s no other narrative than Trump’s,” Coughlin told ABC News. “If you try to get away from this narrative, you’ll see what happens. The first victim was Jeff Flake, the second victim was John McCain.”
“Is it that you take a step in the line and follow everything the president says, including overthrowing the legitimate election, or you will face the wrath of everyone else who is still on the train,” he added.
Strickland said he believes it is too early to say whether or not the Republican party will be able to overcome the Trump era in the coming years.
“I imagine that Donald Trump will continue to have influence within the Republican party and that he can be king in 2024 if he decides not to run for president. In the future, I imagine that the success of local political officials who have had to partner with the Fraud cases will depend on Trump’s popularity within the Republican Party, “Strickland said.
Republicans across the country have campaigned for legislatures in battlefield states to convene and grant a new voter list to vote for Trump instead of Biden, something the Arizona Constitution does not allow.
Ducey has rejected all calls for a special session, and said he would see the legislature on Jan. 11, when his next session will begin.
House Speaker Russell Bowers also ended the idea of convening the legislature, saying he would not authorize a special session and pointing to the Arizona Constitution and the lack of substantial evidence presented by Giuliani and Ellis.
His resistance to launching the legislature, in part, initiated the call for members of the state House not to vote for Bowers as Speaker of the House in the next session.
Coughlin said public disputes are the “burning of your own home.”
“They don’t care because that’s part of the party that puts the party ahead of the country,” he said. “If you don’t believe Trump’s divisive message, then you’re not a Republican. You know, you’re a ‘RINO’ and it’s a very small place to build a party. You’re probably unable to win a statewide election in Arizona. “.
Olivia Rubin of ABC News contributed to the report.