NBC News: Mandel Putting ‘Big Lie’ Front And Center In His Campaign
October 18, 2021
Columbus, OH — According to a new NBC News report, two-time Senate loser Josh Mandel is putting Trump’s bogus Big Lie claims at the front-and-center of his campaign.
Mandel has used his extreme position to attack the other GOP Senate candidates and is dragging them down the election fraud conspiracy rabbit hole. The Big Lie is the defining issue in Republican primary races around the country – and Mandel is doing his part to keep this conspiracy theory in the news in Ohio.
“There is no bottom for Mandel, and his need to elevate this Trumpian lie puts pressure on every GOP Senate candidate to follow his extreme lead. Mandel will do or say anything to earn Trump’s endorsement and does not care about the consequences of lying about the results of an election in order to further his own political career, ” said Michael Beyer, a spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.
Key points below:
NBC News: Trump’s stolen election lie is on the ballot in 2022, thanks to these candidates
Jane C. Timm and Henry Gomez
October 16, 2021
- “The single biggest issue — the issue that gets the most pull, the most respect, the biggest cheers — is talking about the election fraud of 2020’s presidential election,” Trump said last week at a rally in Iowa, again pushing the lie that a second term was stolen from him and that Joe Biden is not the legitimate president.
- “I’m the only candidate in this race who’s willing to stand up all over Ohio, and all over America, and say that I believe the election was stolen from Donald J. Trump,” Josh Mandel, a Republican Senate candidate in Ohio who has made the stolen election lie central to his campaign, told NBC News.
- “It’s the right thing to do for our country,” Mandel added, when asked if he worried his position might hurt him in a general election. “And I don’t care how it impacts me politically.”
- The dynamics could make GOP primaries particularly relevant next year. Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser who hosts a podcast with a large right-wing audience, has described a candidate’s position on the 2020 election results as a “litmus test” for 2022.
- Mandel, a former state treasurer, also has called for 2020 election reviews in all 50 states, including Republican-controlled Ohio, which Trump won by 8 points. He downplayed the suggestion that, by questioning the validity of election results everywhere, he risks discouraging Republicans from voting.
- Trump himself has fed this uncertainty, raising doubts without evidence about whether future elections will be conducted fairly and sending mixed messages about whether Republicans should bother casting ballots.“If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020, Republicans will not be voting in ʼ22 or ʼ24,” Trump said in an emailed statement Wednesday. “It is the single most important thing for Republicans to do.”