Jay Feely and Eli Crane: Election Deniers for Congress

Jay Feely and Eli Crane are election deniers and the Republican nominees for two of Arizona’s seats in the House of Representatives. Crane was first elected to the House in 2022, while Feely is a former football player making his first run for office Running in two of this year’s most competitive House districts, Feely and Crane represent some of democracy supporters’ biggest opportunities to refuse the election denial caucus more seats in Congress.

Worst moments:

• Eli Crane distinguished his first congressional campaign by calling for the decertification of the 2020 election, despite no evidence of fraud nor any legal route to decertifying the results. Crane went on to join a radical faction of GOP House members who held up must-pass bills in an attempt to push through voter suppression legislation.
• Jay Feely ran a primary campaign where he refused to recognize Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, before pivoting to a bare acknowledgement of reality while still promoting conspiracy theories about the election.

History of election denial

Having entered politics in the post-2020 Republican landscape, both Feely and Crane have incorporated election denial into their political brands. In his first congressional campaign, Crane ran on “calling on the state legislature to decertify the 2020 election.” He also urged expanding audits to Arizona’s remaining counties and attacked Republicans he called RINOs for refusing to decertify. He claimed there had been “massive amounts of fraud” in 2020, and urged Arizona’s attorney general to open a criminal investigation into his voter fraud claims. There was also no evidence of widespread fraud in Arizona’s 2020 vote, and legal experts said there was no way to decertify the 2020 election.

Crane’s rhetoric has continued while in office. In a 2023 appearance on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast, Crane said Arizonans don’t believe recent elections were the most secure ever, adding, “I agree with them.” And in 2024, speaking to poll watchers trained by the Trump campaign, Crane called them the new “boots on the ground” and told them to be ready for an opposition that would “do whatever it takes to hold on to power.”

Running in a less GOP-dominated district, Feely has used election denial to cater to the MAGA base; while running in the Republican primary, Feely “repeatedly declined to say whether Trump lost the 2020 election.” After winning the Republican nomination, Feely acknowledged Biden’s victory in an attempt to appeal to general election voters, but his campaign continued to claim that his position had not changed, citing conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Despite attempting to soften his rhetoric, Feely has shown that he remains beholden to the delusions of the election denialist primary electorate that nominated him.

Influence over elections

Both Feely and Crane are fully aligned with Trump and the MAGA movement’s legislative agenda. Feely only decided to run in Arizona’s 1st district, rather than its 5th, on Trump’s recommendation, and he has heavily promoted his close relationship to Trump even as other Republicans have attempted to distance themselves. Crane has been endorsed by Trump since his first campaign for office, and marked his 2026 primary victory with a social media post telling Trump that, “It’s an honor to be in the fight with you.” Trump-aligned Super PACs have reportedly poured millions of dollars into Feely and Crane’s races.

Feely and Crane have received so much support from national Republicans because they are reliable votes for their election-restricting legislative agenda. Both men are strong supporters of the SAVE Act, a restrictive voting bill that could disenfranchise millions of eligible American voters, disproportionately affecting women. Feely touted his support for the bill during the Republican primary, even alluding to it in his final remarks at a debate, where he stressed the importance of enshrining Trump’s policies in law. Crane has repeatedly voted for the SAVE Act in the House, and even joined 13 other Republicans in blocking a slate of bills, including the must-pass defense bill, unless the related SAVE America Act was written into the defense bill itself.

Most concerningly, Feely and Crane could use their House seats to vote against certification of 2028 election results, if they are still in Congress. Though a law passed in 2022 was intended to limit the grounds on which members of Congress can object to states’ electoral votes, Crane’s past push for an unlawful “decertification” and Feely’s personal closeness to Trump indicate that both men could support spurious and illegitimate objections to a future Democratic presidential election victory.