Election denier Jim Marchant advances in Nevada Secretary of State race

Jim Marchant, a prominent election denier who has spent years spreading false conspiracies about voting and elections, won Nevada’s June 9 Republican primary for secretary of state Monday night. 

The victory puts Marchant — who has said he would not have certified President Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Nevada —  one step closer to overseeing elections in one of the country’s most important battlegrounds. And it underlines how, more than half a decade after 2020, election denialism remains a driving force in Republican politics.

In November, Marchant will face incumbent Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar (D), who defeated him in 2022. The outcome will determine who serves as Nevada’s chief election official heading into the 2028 presidential election.

The secretary of state oversees election procedures, provides guidance to county election officials and helps certify statewide results. In Nevada — a swing state that President Joe Biden won by fewer than 34,000 votes in 2020 — that gives the office major national significance.

Marchant has long been one of the most visible election deniers running for office. 

After losing a U.S. House race in 2020, he sued to overturn the result, alleging widespread voter fraud. A judge rejected his request.

He later became tied to President Donald Trump’s broader ‘fake elector’ scheme to overturn the 2020 election in Nevada. 

Marchant was photographed standing with Nevada Republicans when they signed fake Electoral College certificates falsely claiming Trump won the state, even though Biden officially carried Nevada. Marchant also said during his 2022 secretary of state campaign that he would not have certified Biden’s 2020 victory in Nevada.

His current campaign platform calls for a sweeping overhaul of Nevada’s election system, including proof of U.S. citizenship to register and vote, ending universal mail-in ballots, eliminating electronic voting machines, hand counting ballots, forcing all voters to re-register and moving toward single-day voting.

“Nevadans deserve elections that are secure, transparent, and trusted by everyone,” Marchant wrote on social media. “As your SOS, I will pursue a complete modernization and reform of Nevada’s election system.”

Those proposals would sharply restrict voting access in a state where all active registered voters receive mail-in ballots and vote primarily by mail.