County clerk candidates who questioned or outright denied the results of the 2020 presidential election performed poorly in Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Of the four counties — Salt Lake, Summit, Utah and Washington — with clerk candidates who espoused conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, only one looks to win their election.
Republican nominee Aaron Davidson easily won his race to become the new Utah County clerk, according to early returns Wednesday. His main opponent in the race was Independent American candidate Jake Oaks. Davidson leads the race with 80% of the vote, while Oaks has 13%, according to early returns.
Earlier this year, Davidson spoke as part of a panel before a screening of “2000 Mules,” a movie that claims without evidence that election drop boxes were stuffed with fraudulent ballots, and on his campaign website, Davidson says he is against mail-in ballots, alleging, without evidence, that the county’s ballots have irregularities.
Davidson was also scrutinized earlier this year when he suggested Utah County should not spend money on Monkeypox vaccines, because the shots would benefit gay men.
In Salt Lake County, Democrat Lannie Chapman has a comfortable lead over GOP nominee Goud Maragani, though initial returns Wednesday did not indicate a clear-cut winner.
An investigation by The Salt Lake Tribune showed Maragani repeatedly said in social media posts that Democrats stole the 2020 election by cheating. Other posts indicate Maragani described Democrats as “Marxists” and “commies.” As Tuesday’s election got closer, Maragani then claimed, “At one time, I did think the 2020 election was stolen.”
In Summit and Washington counties, clerk races were won by the incumbents — Democrat Eve Furse in Summit and Republican Susan Lewis in Washington. Both received over 90% of the clerk votes cast in each of their elections, according to early returns, and both faced write-in challengers who contested the results of the 2020 election.
This still will be updated as more ballots are counted and reported.
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