The Arizona Republican Party continues to deny President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in Grand Canyon state, even after 11 voters for Biden cast their votes and sent the certification to Congress on Dec. 14.
As a result, the rift between the activist, right-wing faction and the establishment moderate in the state’s GOP is widening amid baseless allegations of electoral fraud by some Republicans and Trump allies – accusations that have been dismissed by judges in several court cases.
The clash within the Republican Party is unlikely to go away anytime soon, and those rebellious positions, such as challenging Biden’s victory, within the party could even be a political strategy to boost some voter groups, experts say.
“This election is far from over,” said Kelli Ward, president of the Arizona GOP, in a video posted on Twitter Tuesday morning. “Anyone who tells you otherwise, be it in the media, be it the talking heads of the Democrats or the Republican establishment, is just avoiding the facts.”
But when it comes to facts, the country’s top lawyer disagreed. The Justice Department has found no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would overturn the results of the presidential election, Attorney General William Barr said.
Arizona voters generally split their tickets; vote for Biden and Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly topped the ballot, and Republicans re-elected to the vote. All claims brought by the party or the president’s allies have been dismissed in court and the party is now conducting audits through a subpoena issued by members of the Republican-led state legislature.
Ward won her post in 2019 after two statewide losses in Republican primaries for United States Senate seats against the late Senator John McCain and former Senator Martha McSally.
She challenged the election in unsuccessful courtroom battles and criticized fellow Republican, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, who defended the state’s electoral integrity despite setbacks from Ward and President Donald Trump.
Despite Monday’s Electoral College votes for Biden, Ward, who is a Trump voter, and other GOP voters in Arizona still met to cast unofficial ballots for the president – and 27 members of the Arizona state legislature wrote a joint resolution calling on Congress to accept those ballots, instead of those signed and certified by Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.
James Strickland, associate professor of political science at Arizona State University, said pushing Republicans to challenge election results could be a political strategy for future elections.
“There seem to be a lot of people within the party who have genuine questions about electoral processes, but filing lawsuits could also be an electoral strategy for 2022 and 2024,” Strickland said of allegations of electoral fraud. “This allows party officials to claim they are pursuing all available options, encouraging donors and other supporters to stay involved and, most importantly, vote in those future elections.”
“Angry voters are turning out,” he added. “If the party leadership is indeed pursuing the fraud claims to gain a political advantage, it would suggest that they believe a significant portion of their supporters will appreciate and reward those efforts.”
The president has used his courtroom battles as a large-scale post-election fund-raising mechanism. The Trump campaign and the GOP have raised at least $ 170 million since election day, ABC News reported Dec. 1.
Arizona-based Republican strategist Chuck Coughlin said the election fraud allegations have created a tough path for members who do not support these claims.
“They have been holding on to this electoral fraud, a presidential story dating back to the Iowa primaries. [Trump] lost to Ted Cruz, he said he’s just not willing to accept an election result that he won’t win, ”Coughlin said.
As in other battlefield states across the country, the challenges to Arizona’s election results are driven by false claims of apparent fraud. Republicans recently counted a win after the Senate Judicial Committee ordered Maricopa County to conduct a forensic audit of its voting machines and two recent lawsuits thrown out by Arizona courts have been filed, one with the U.S. Supreme Court and the other at the US Supreme Court. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
In total, Trump and his allies have filed nearly 60 lawsuits as part of the effort to reverse the election results, nearly all of which have since been rejected by judges, often with sharply worded rulings. At least six lawsuits have been filed in Arizona alone. Last week, the United States Supreme Court rejected a bid led by Texas and backed by Trump to throw votes from four swing states – a significant blow to the attempt to get the court to reverse the election results. Secretaries of state across the country told ABC News last month that there was no evidence of widespread electoral fraud, and that post-election audits of voting machines have reduced tiny differences in the number of votes.
Despite the lack of success in the courts, disagreements continued to bubble up in the ranks following Ducey’s involvement in the Arizona election certification process.
According to Coughlin, these types of battles are not uncommon in Arizona. He said there is a faction of the party that has been “consistently anti-establishment, libertarian-leaning Republicans dominating insider politics.”
“It’s the narrow base of the Republican Party that it operates from. And elected officials who don’t have wider support are vulnerable to that. McCain was the only one who could resist it at the time, and no one else has that kind of broad base support. clearly the governor hasn’t, ”he said.
Ducey has angered Trump, who publicly questioned on Twitter what the governor’s “haste” was to certify the results. The governor became a target of Trump and his allies after Arizona’s election certification. All 15 Arizona counties, led by Republicans and Democrats, collected and certified their own elections, which were then sent to Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and her office for further statewide audits. Only then, weeks after the November 30 election, Ducey participated in a statewide certification of the results, along with Hobbs and Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
While Ducey confirmed the results, a meeting led by Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis continued to cast doubt on the election. It was attended by several state lawmakers and newly re-elected members of Congress, including Representatives Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, all of whom were presented with baseless conspiracy theories about Arizona’s election fraud.
Coughlin said it is no surprise that the party has directed its criticisms of Ducey in light of Trump’s loss.
“There is no story other than Trump’s story,” Coughlin told ABC News. ‘If you try to break out of that story at all, you’ll see what happens. The first victim was Jeff Flake, the second victim was John McCain. “
“Either you will line up and follow everything the president says, including overthrowing the legitimate election, or you will face the anger of everyone else still on the train,” he added. .
Strickland said he thinks it is too early to say whether the Republican Party will be able to work past the Trump era in the coming years.
“I imagine that Donald Trump will continue to influence the Republican Party, and that he could become a kingmaker by 2024 if he chooses not to become president himself. In the future, I imagine the success of local political officials who associate with the fraud cases will depend on Trump’s popularity within the Republican Party, “Strickland said.
Republicans across the country have campaigned for legislature in states on the battlefield to come together and grant a new slate of voters to vote for Trump instead of Biden, which is not allowed by the Constitution of the United States. Arizona.
Ducey has declined all calls for a special session, saying he would see the legislature on Jan. 11, when the next session begins.
House Speaker Russell Bowers also eventually shut down the idea of convening the legislature, saying he would not authorize a special session and pointing out the Arizona Constitution and the lack of substantial evidence presented by Giuliani and Ellis.
His opposition to the seat of the legislature, in part, prompted members of the state house not to vote for Bowers as Speaker of the House at the next session.
Coughlin said the public quarrels are the “burning down of your own house.”
“They don’t care because this is part of the party that puts the party above the country,” he said. “If you don’t believe the Trump message of division, then you’re not a Republican. You know you’re a ‘RINO’ and it’s a really narrow place to throw a party. No doubt it’s not able to a statewide election in Arizona. “
ABC News’ Olivia Rubin contributed to the reporting.