Another GOP Primary Night: Same Conspiracy Theorists And Election Deniers, Bigger Jobs

Florida and Wyoming Republicans didn't nominate a bunch of new election deniers and conspiracy theorists yesterday. They promoted the ones already in office. In Florida, Congressman Byron Donalds, who still won't say Biden legitimately won, just became the GOP's nominee for governor, and appointed Senator Ashley Moody, who signed her name to a “batshit insane” election lawsuit as Florida AG won her primary to keep the seat. In Wyoming, the state's top election official — a man who's spent four years telling Wyomingites their elections are broken and handed their voter data over to Trump's DOJ — just won the nomination for Congress. And in the other open Wyoming seat, the woman who beat Liz Cheney by calling 2020 "rigged," is now the GOP nominee for Senate.

Meet the election deniers who won GOP primaries yesterday:

Florida

Governor: Trump Favorite Byron Donalds Still Won't Say Biden Legitimately Won — And Just Won The Nomination To Control Florida's Elections. Rep. Byron Donalds was one of 147 House Republicans who voted against certifying Biden's win in 2021, objecting specifically to Arizona and Pennsylvania's electors. He voted against creating an independent commission to investigate January 6 and against holding Steve Bannon in contempt for stonewalling that investigation. Asked directly in 2023 whether Biden is a legitimate president, Donalds said: "I mean, me, personally? No.” He's never fully committed to accepting results he doesn't like, either — asked in May 2024 whether he'd certify that year's election if Trump lost, he said only that his answer was “always conditional.” After DeSantis signed Florida's SAVE Act, which requires documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, Donalds falsely accused groups suing to block it, including the Florida NAACP, of wanting "weakness in the controls of our elections" so they could "find votes to win." Trump endorsed him for governor before he'd even entered the race — "RUN, BYRON, RUN!"

U.S. Senate (Special Primary): Sen. Ashley Moody Supported Efforts To Overturn The 2020 Election — And Is Still Working To Restrict Voting Today. When she was serving as Florida Attorney General, Ashley Moody joined an amicus brief backing Texas's lawsuit seeking to invalidate four states' 2020 results even though her office's lawyers privately called the underlying suit "batshit insane" the day before she signed on. As AG, she also sued the Department of Homeland Security in 2024, demanding it help Florida check voters’' citizenship status. That lawsuit is now the legal basis Florida and three other Republican-led states are using to keep access to an expanded federal voter-purge database — one that has repeatedly, wrongly flagged naturalized citizens as noncitizens. Now a senator, appointed to Marco Rubio's seat in 2025, Moody co-sponsored Trump's SAVE America Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote nationwide.

House FL-06: Randy Fine Claimed A Mail Ballot Mix-Up Proves Democrats Are "Stealing Elections Every Day" — Then Got Caught Rifling Through A Stranger's Mailbox. Rep. Rand Fine, who won a hard-fought 2025 special election to replace Michael Waltz, flew into a rage on X in June after receiving a mail ballot addressed to a previous tenant at his D.C. apartment — a routine clerical error — and declared it evidence that "Democrats are stealing elections every day," demanding Congress pass Trump's SAVE America Act. Two months later, on the eve of his own primary, Ring camera footage surfaced showing Fine himself opening a stranger's mailbox while canvassing and flipping through their mail; police said it didn't appear he took or tampered with anything, and the homeowner declined to press charges.

House FL-13: Anna Paulina Luna Wrote A Children's Book Pushing 2020 Election Denial.

Conspiracy theorist and serial attention seeker Rep. Anna Paulina Luna has claimed that the 2020 election was "compromised" because a glitch from Dominion Voting Systems' machines flipped votes to Biden and called for the “decertification” of Arizona election results based on the sham Maricopa County election audit. In 2023, she co-wrote and released a children's book, "The Legend of Naranja," in which a Biden-like banana character cheats a Trump-like orange out of a race — Luna herself has said the book "has a lot of ties and implications as to what happened in 2020" and is meant to "explain it in a way that kids can understand."

House FL-27: SAVE Act Supporter Maria Elvira Salazar Spread Election Misinformation On Spanish-Language Radio After January 6. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar was recovering from Covid-19 on January 6, 2021 and did not vote on certification of the Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College, but days after the Capitol attack, she went on Miami's Radio Mambí and amplified a false claim about Pennsylvania's vote count: "How is it possible that in Pennsylvania there are 200,000 more votes on Election Day than there were [voters] in the electoral rolls? That's not possible." She's kept it current, too — in April 2025 she wrote after voting for the SAVE Act: “Tonight, I voted yes on the SAVE Act to protect the integrity of our elections. Requiring voter ID is a simple, common sense way to stop fraud and ensure only eligible citizens cast a ballot.”

Wyoming

U.S. Senate: Trump Ally Harriet Hageman Was Accused Of Professional Misconduct By Wyoming Attorneys For Calling The 2020 Election “Rigged.” Rep. Harriett Hageman ousted Liz Cheney in the 2022 primary with Donald Trump’s full support. After months of dodging the question, Hageman began saying directly that "absolutely the election was rigged. It was rigged to make sure that President (Donald) Trump could not get reelected." She's said that "what happened in 2020 is a travesty. It should never happen again," and endorsed the debunked "2000 Mules" conspiracy theory. Her turn prompted 41 prominent Wyoming attorneys and retired judges to formally accuse her of violating her oath as an attorney; she's never walked it back, saying only that "there remain serious questions about that election." She hasn't let up since taking office, either: Hageman is a cosponsor of the SAVE Act and she voted against government funding bills specifically because they didn't include it, saying she'd block funding "that fails to protect federal elections from illegal voters"

U.S. House (At-Large): Chuck Gray Is Wyoming's Sitting Election Denier-In-Chief. As a state legislator running for Secretary of State in 2022, Gray was endorsed by Trump as "a powerful champion for election integrity," hosted screenings of the debunked film "2000 Mules," and campaigned on eliminating Wyoming's ballot drop boxes over county clerks' objections that they're safe and legal. As Secretary of State, he's pushed a 2025 law requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register — now being challenged in court — and championed the federal SAVE America Act, saying in March it has his "full and complete support." He also handed over Wyoming's full, unredacted voter rolls, including sensitive ID data, to the Trump Justice Department on request; a retired Wyoming attorney is now seeking a criminal investigation into whether that violated state law, which Gray has dismissed as "Trump Derangement Syndrome."