Five Republican 'election deniers' lose governor races in five key US swing states

After the Democrats' big win in the US midterm elections, five Republican 'election denier' candidates have lost races for governor in five top battleground states. State leaders can hold significant sway over election administration, so the result could matter for the 2028 presidential race.

In Tuesday's voting, Congressman Andy Biggs in Arizona, Congressman John James in Michigan, State Treasurer Stacy Garrity in Pennsylvania and Congressman Tom Tiffany in Wisconsin all lost their gubernatorial races. So too did billionaire Rick Jackson of Georgia, a state that was central to President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential results.

All five candidates had either cast doubt on Joe Biden's victory over Trump in the 2020 election, or voted to block it.

Jackson had called Biden's win 'totally ridiculous' and criticised Georgia state officials for not complying with Trump's demands to 'find' extra votes. Pressed on the 2020 election at a campaign event this year, he said, 'Our people really let us down.'

In January 2021, Biggs and Tiffany voted as members of the House of Representatives to overturn the 2020 results. Both also signed a lawsuit that sought to invalidate results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all states Biden won.

James was not in Congress when the 2020 election was certified; he had run unsuccessfully for the Senate that year and later won a House seat in the 2022 midterms. That year he acknowledged Biden's victory, but in June this year he told podcaster Benny Johnson that the 2020 election was 'rigged and manipulated'.

Garrity, elected to her current position in 2020, was among the right-wing politicians who campaigned with Trump to reverse his election defeat. At a rally in Pennsylvania on January 5, 2021, she called on state lawmakers to decertify the 2020 results. A day later, Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol.

Tiffany, Garrity and Jackson have since issued statements or clarified their previous positions and acknowledged that Biden won. Biggs and James, however, have not. Al Jazeera reached out to both of their offices for comment but has not yet heard back.

Trump is entering the final two years of his second term and, under the US Constitution, is ineligible for re-election. It is unclear who will succeed him as the Republican standard-bearer. Battleground states such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have vacillated between the two parties' nominees in recent elections and will play critical roles in 2028.

In some states, governors play a major role in voting access, election administration and the redrawing of congressional maps. Georgia's Republican Governor Brian Kemp, who was prevented by term limits from running this cycle, said on Wednesday that he would not call a special session of the state legislature to redraw the state's congressional maps before his Democratic successor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, is sworn in.

After years of casting doubt on US elections, Trump told The New York Times on Tuesday night that he was 'absolutely willing' to accept the midterm results. He also pledged to work with the Democratic Party, which retook control of both chambers of Congress.