Trump’s GOP election purge marches on, despite setbacks in Georgia

As The Post’s Rosalind S. Helderman reported, a GOP member of the Wisconsin Election Commission who had rebuked Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud issued a surprise resignation. And in doing so, he effectively said that the false “stolen election” narrative had so consumed his party that he could no longer represent it on the commission:

As a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly, Dean Knudson led the legislative push to create the six-member panel, which issues guidance to local county clerks and helps administer the state’s local and federal elections. But he told his colleagues at a public meeting Wednesday that his refusal to spread falsehoods about the election had caused him to be branded a RINO — a “Republican in Name Only” — after a lifetime of conservative activism.

“Two of my core values are to practice service above self and to display personal integrity,” he said. “To me, that integrity demands acknowledging the truth, even when the truth is painful. In this case, the painful truth is that President Trump lost the election in 2020. He lost the election in Wisconsin in 2020. And the loss was not due to election fraud.”

Knudson said he has been distressed that elected officials and candidates at the highest levels of the GOP have “peddled misinformation and perpetuated falsehoods about the 2020 elections.”

“Now, it’s become clear to me that I cannot be effective in my role of representing Republicans on the commission,” he said.

Knudson’s resignation came amid pressure from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). The practical implications of it will take a while to fully shake out.

As plenty have noted, his departure leaves fellow GOP commissioner Robert F. Spindell Jr. as the only eligible chairman for an upcoming term that will include much of the 2024 election. (The job rotates between Republicans and Democrats, and it will be the GOP’s turn.) Spindell not only toed the Trump line on claims of widespread fraud in 2020, but he toured the state giving a presentation on how the election was supposedly “rigged,” and he even served as a fake elector for Trump.

Given the commission chairman is empowered to approve the state’s vote canvass and certify the results, an election truther in that role could wield significant power. (Wisconsin Republicans are currently trying to abolish the commission and put such decisions in the hands of elected officials.)

At the same time, it’s not clear Spindell would ever get the job. While the commission was due to pick its next chairman Wednesday, it wound up delaying the vote, with Spindell being the only “no” vote among six members. State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) will get to pick Knudson’s replacement, who could vie with Spindell for the chair. But Vos has also come under significant pressure to follow Trump’s line and surely will again.

There’s also the matter of the chairmanship selection requiring a majority of votes — that is, with a vote from at least one Democrat. What happens if neither Spindell nor the GOP alternative is viewed as acceptable? We don’t yet know.

All of that aside, though, the circumstances of Knudson’s exit echo a lot of other instances in which those who stood up to Trump’s claims or certified Trump’s loss have found themselves marginalized and pushed out of power. It’s not just the election truthers who are winning GOP backing in key races, like the two candidates for Michigan attorney general and secretary of state, and Pennsylvania gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano; there are also subtler and lower-profile instances.

In Michigan, the state party declined to renominate a statewide canvasser who certified Trump’s three-point loss in the state, Aaron Van Langevelde. His GOP replacement, who had to be approved by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, was Tony Daunt.

Daunt, too, found himself marginalized. He resigned from the GOP’s state committee last month in somewhat Knudson-esque fashion. He decried that “feckless, cowardly party ‘leaders’ have made the election here in Michigan a test of who is the most cravenly loyal to Donald Trump and re-litigating the results of the 2020 cycle.”

Van Langevelde isn’t the only canvasser to move on amid pressure or be replaced. A Detroit News review found that the party nominated new canvassers in eight of Michigan’s 11 largest counties — with the replacements in many cases being election truthers. One of the canvassers replaced, Michelle Voorheis, noted to NPR that every candidate nominated to replace her spoke about combating voter fraud, even though canvassers have no authority to decide such matters.

In case the significance of that doesn’t sink in, think back to when two GOP canvassers in Detroit-based Wayne County momentarily declined to certify the results in November 2020. They ultimately did, but one of their new replacements, Robert Boyd, has said he wouldn’t have done so.

Some other examples:

• In heavily Republican Hood County, Tex., an election administrator was pushed out after an extensive campaign against her. The official, Michele Carew, was technically nonpartisan but says she has voted Republican for more than a decade.
• In Scott County, Iowa, the top election official (a Democrat) resigned amid another pressure campaign, and the GOP-controlled board of supervisors appointed a Republican replacement rather than hold a special election. Earlier, the Republican Party chairman in the same county had resigned after criticizing Trump post-Jan. 6.
• Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, the lone Republican on Philadelphia’s election board, drew Trump’s ire for debunking his claims. He resigned his term early to join a watchdog group in late 2021 — though he insisted Trump didn’t play a role.
• An AP review in the summer of 2021 showed a spate of election officials leaving their jobs in key 2020 states.

Whether any of this will ultimately matter in future elections, including 2024, is not clear. But it’s become apparent what the message is about who is welcome in the GOP to oversee elections. So far, Raffensperger is largely the exception.

And when saying the 2020 election was validly decided is too out of step with the conservative movement for officials to continue serving, that’s quite a state of affairs.