"As false claims of a stolen election took root in 2020, Arizona’s attorney general — a Republican — spoke out on national television. Donald Trump was projected to lose the swing state, he said on Nov. 11, and “no facts” suggested that would change.
This month Mark Brnovich called into a far-right podcast with a different message: His investigation into the vote was turning up “serious concerns.”
“It’s frustrating for all of us, because I think we all know what happened in 2020,” the attorney general told the host, former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon, without explaining what he meant. The podcast titled the segment “AZ AG On Interim Report On Stealing The 2020 Election.”
Many GOP candidates have embraced the former president’s false election claims while seeking a coveted endorsement in their 2022 primary races. But Brnovich, now running for Senate, stands out for his shift over the past year and a half. His Senate campaign has highlighted his ongoing review of the 2020 vote, launched last year in response to a widely-ridiculed audit commissioned by state GOP lawmakers.
Critics say Brnovich has caved to conspiracy theorists for political gain in the Republican primary. Calculated choices to keep fanning Trump’s grievances mean more misinformed voters, more distractions for election workers and more questions about who will stick up for democracy in the future, said Tammy Patrick, a former elections official in Arizona’s biggest battleground, Maricopa County.
“If no one is held responsible for lying … or undermining confidence based on their own greed and, you know, desire for power to either be elected or be reelected — if no one is held accountable for those actions, then we are in real trouble right now,” said Patrick, who now works with the nonpartisan group Democracy Fund."
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