Howdy folks.

The November election is a month away and we are still dealing with echoes of the 2020 campaign. But are we seeing signs that the “Stop the Steal” ethos is losing power? Here’s a look at what’s in this edition:

Fewer candidates on November ballot believe 2020 election was stolen
Inside the Texas voter registration meltdown with the reporter who broke the story
Arizona investigation finds few noncitizen voters

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Sometimes it seems like the 2020 presidential election never ends.

Trying to prove that he actually won that race has been an animating feature of President Donald Trump’s second term, even though audits, investigations, and court cases have all found that he lost to former President Joe Biden.

Trump’s obsession has famously become a litmus test within the Republican Party. But a new analysis shared first with Votebeat suggests that, six years later, the issue may be losing some of its animating power for candidates.

States United Action, a nonpartisan nonprofit that supports state officials in protecting elections, examined the number of people running for statewide office or Congress who backed President Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, refused to certify the legitimate results of that election, or attempted to overturn those results. The group categorizes those candidates as “election deniers.”

The group found that the number of such candidates fell by about 30% between 2022 and 2026, dropping from 285 to 197.

The candidates this year on the States United Action list includes contestants for governor in key swing states, attorneys general, U.S. senators, members of the House of Representatives, and, perhaps most importantly, secretaries of state. If they win, it would give them expanded control over the levers of electoral power for what is expected to be a contentious 2028 presidential election.

Right now, according to States United Action, 27 current statewide officeholders on their list have some oversight of elections. This November, 33 candidates for statewide office are on the ballot across the country.

If history is any guide, most of them are likely to lose. Since 2021, according to the group’s analysis, fewer than one in four of such candidates have won a statewide office.

“We know that election denial is a losing campaign strategy and that Americans are tired of hearing the same old lies,” said Joanna Lydgate, CEO of States United Action. But, she added, “the threat they pose to our elections and the rule of law is very real: The candidates who win in 2026 will run our elections in 2028 and serve as a check on Trump’s power in the meantime.”

Such candidates are on the ballot in almost all of the swing states expected to be pivotal to the 2028 presidential race, including Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin.

One of the most closely watched races is the one for Arizona secretary of state, where incumbent Democrat Adrian Fontes faces Alexander Kolodin, an attorney who helped bring unsuccessful lawsuits challenging Arizona's 2020 election results and was later disciplined by the State Bar over election-related litigation.

Kolodin, who did not respond to a request for comment, rejects the “election denier” label. On the campaign trail, he has sought to highlight his work in the Arizona Legislature, noting that several of his election reform bills have passed with bipartisan support, though those largely came out of negotiations around must-pass pieces of legislation.

Meanwhile, Kolodin would not say at a recent debate whether Arizona’s elections were safe and secure.

The persistent attacks on America’s electoral system are starting to take a toll on voter confidence. Recent polls have shown shrinking confidence in the country’s elections. For example, a recent University of California, San Diego survey found that less than half Americans — just 49% — thought the November election would be free and fair.

Pew found less of a partisan gap than in the past, though cautioned that Democrats and Republicans have different reasons for their dwindling confidence.

Thad Kousser, a UC-San Diego political science professor, said that electing election skeptics to office doesn’t necessarily mean that they will throw a wrench into the process.

“The real question is not what people have said about past elections but whether the elections that they run are going to be rooted in reality, informed by the experts in their teams,” he said. “If people come into office and take an open and honest look, that’s going to be very different than if they came in with their mind made up, ignored the evidence and pushed for policies that are not rooted in reality.”

One recent case of that arose in South Dakota, where outgoing Secretary of State Monae Johnson entered office as a skeptic of the electoral office and is leaving as a defender of its integrity. Johnson, a Republican, is endorsing a Democrat to replace her in the fall election after feuding with her party over the issue.

Votebeat Brunch: Inside the Texas voter registration meltdown

Last week, Votebeat reporter Natalia Contreras broke the news of a problem at the Texas Department of Public Safety that derailed efforts by Texans to register to vote. At first it was unclear what the problem was or how many people were affected. Then, it became clear that at least 500,000 voter registration applications and updates were affected. Natalia has reported on these problems before, more than once, and has written about her own struggles registering to vote in Texas. This week, we talk to Natalia about the story behind the story.

How did you first learn about this problem?

I was actually working on a different story related to redistricting when a source that I talk to very often called me with a tip in the middle of the afternoon. I just started trying to confirm it.

Did you have a sense at first of how far-reaching the problems were?

I didn’t have an exact number, but knowing that Texas and DPS in particular had a history of not sending applications to counties, mine included, I had a sense that this was about to be a big deal.

What happened with your online voter registration?

I had just moved, so I updated my driver's license and went to DPS to get my license. I also had changed my name, so I checked the box that I wanted to register to vote. I even asked the clerks: how do I know that everything's good to go? They said everything will be good and you’ll get your voter registration card. But of course, I double-checked. A week later, I called my county and said I just want to make sure I'm registered. And they said ‘No you’re not.’ They didn't even have my application from DPS, so they said I could come in and register in person. And so that's what I did.

Do you feel like you have a sense of the scale of the problem?

Fortunately, the largest counties like Harris County, Dallas, Collin County, Tarrant County – the counties with the largest backlog of registration applications – are well-resourced. They have people and expanded resources so they are actually getting through these applications really fast. The numbers, of course, were large, and people were panicking initially. But based on conversations that I had with those election officials and the type of technology that they have on their hands, they're gonna get these through. The problem is the smaller counties, the ones that are not as well resourced, the ones that have one or two staffers working. There are counties out there that really their elections department is a one man show, believe it or not, and so those counties are the ones that are going to be really working day and night to try to process these.

What do you think the impact will be on the November election?

I think that there is a risk that we're going to see a lot of people casting provisional ballots, which in turn means a lot more paperwork for election officials after election day. That is a process that is time-consuming as well. Are these forms that people are filling out at the polls because their application wasn't processed on time? I'm already, like, thinking about the consequences and implications of this beyond just getting these applications processed in time.

What are the major unanswered questions you are trying to answer?

The major unanswered questions are: Why does Texas still have systems like these that are not up to par with what voters in Texas need? We have more than 18 million voters here. Why is this still happening? Texans are doing what they're supposed to. We tell people to register early. They do that. Why are we still dealing with that? If it's so widely known that these problems exist, why haven't they been fixed? Why did it take so long to catch it?

Do you think that state officials are taking it seriously enough?

Some of them are, but not everyone. I think that we've seen the governor react with a lot more urgency to other things, specifically like noncitizens on the voter rolls, and we're not seeing the same type of outrage about this issue. Where is the outrage? The state agencies are saying this is resolved, but they have said that in the past, and this problem with DPS has been known and it's ongoing. They've said it's been resolved. It clearly hasn't been. So when they say it's resolved right now, I'm still skeptical.