Another primary night, another election-denying conspiracy theorist winning a major GOP nomination.
New Mexico Republicans officially nominated Audrey Trujillo for secretary of state on Tuesday night, anointing a woman who has spread false conspiracies about the 2020 election to run their state’s election system.
Videos by VICE
She’s also pushed other conspiracy theories, repeatedly attacking COVID vaccines, and shared antisemitic content on Twitter.
Trujillo ran unopposed in the primary, with support from the state party, on a platform calling for audits of the 2020 election.
She called the 2020 election a “huge coup” in a March interview and said the U.S. is “no better than any other communist country like Venezuela or any of these other states where our elections are being manipulated.”
And in May, the Albuquerque Journal reported that Trujillo retweeted a meme that showed pharmaceutical executives with the Star of David beside each face. The meme said “Pick your poison!” and described a number of alleged Jewish connections to COVID-19 vaccines.
“Look here!” Trujillo tweeted with a finger-pointing emoji in a since-deleted tweet.
The meme included listings of “corporation net worth.” One line of text reads: “Which group is heavily over-represented in vaccine nepotism?”
Trujillo claimed to the Albuquerque Journal that her account may have been hacked by antifa and that she didn’t remember retweeting the meme—but that if she did she might have missed the Stars of David.
“If it was tweeted by me—which I said I don’t recall these tweets—that’s not something I would say, in terms of anything with Jewish or racist intent at all,” Trujillo said.
Trujillo also retweeted a conspiracy theorist’s message that attacked New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham that also targeted George Soros—a frequent target for anti-semitic attacks.
“New Mexico‘s 50th in just about every category. Take your mask off and get to work. Serve the people of New Mexico, not the globalists, quit letting rapists and murderers out of jail? Soros DA’s on the payroll,” she retweeted.
New Mexico leans Democratic, and while Republicans have won statewide offices in recent years, Trujillo’s extreme views likely means she’ll face an uphill battle.
But she’s far from the only Republican pushing conspiracy theories about 2020 who the GOP has nominated to be their party’s candidates to run their election system.
Michigan Republicans have already nominated QAnon-aligned election denier Kristina Karamo for secretary of state. Pennsylvania Republicans picked election-denying, QAnon-aligned Doug Mastriano for their state’s gubernatorial nominee, putting him one election away from controlling the state’s election system since in Pennsylvania, governors pick the secretary of state. And in Arizona and Nevada, QAnon-aligned election deniers have real shots at their party’s nominations for secretary of state.
Not every election denier is winning their primary. Trump-backed GOP Rep. Jody Hice lost his primary against Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp easily defeated Trump-backed former Sen. David Perdue, and QAnon-backed California secretary of state candidate Rachel Hamm finished a distant third in her state’s all-party primaries on Tuesday night.
But enough of these extremist candidates are winning primaries in enough swing states that some may prevail in the fall general elections—and sow chaos ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.
