Election denier Chuck Gray wins Wyoming primary to become Secretary of State
Now six Republicans who backed former President Donald Trump‘s election fraud claims could take charge of states’ elections with GOP state Rep. Chuck Gray’s primary win Tuesday night in Wyoming.
Thanks to the state’s ultra-red make-up, the Trump-endorsed Gray is practically assured to win the race in November. Democrats didn’t even field a primary candidate.
The other five election deniers running for secretary of state are from swing states and include Mark Finchem in Arizona, Kristina Karamo in Michigan, Kim Crockett in Minnesota, Jim Marchant in Nevada and Audrey Trujillo in New Mexico.
Now six Republicans who backed former President Donald Trump’s election fraud claims could take charge of states’ elections with GOP state Rep. Chuck Gray’s (pictured) primary win Tuesday night in Wyoming
Former President Donald Trumo officially endorsed state House Rep. Chuck Gray for Wyoming secretary of state earlier this month. Gray, like Trump, is a 2020 election denier
Gray’s main Republican primary competition was state Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Tara Nethercott
Gray, a former radio talk show host who has served in the Wyoming state legislature since 2017, cast himself as the outsider, versus his main GOP primary opponent, state Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Tara Nethercott.
Gray was officially endorsed by Trump earlier this month.
With 95 percent of the vote reporting, Gray received 49.5 percent of the vote to Nethercott’s 41.1 percent.
Gray pushed that the 2020 election was riddled with widespread fraud and as secretary of state he’d work to secure it.
‘We must ban ballot drop boxes,’ he told Wyoming News Now. ‘These ballot dropboxes are unattended and open up our elections to ballot harvesting fraud.’
‘We must also move to an election with entirely paper ballots with no exceptions,’ he continued. ‘There also needs to be an audit of each election.’
On Twitter, Nethercott shared an article from the Cowboy State Daily that quotes Wyoming’s current Secretary of State Ed Buchanan expressing that he wasn’t comfortable with comments Gray made doubting the credibility of Wyoming’s elections.
‘I really don’t want to see people be disingenuous about what they will [do] or think they can do once they get in here,’ he said. ‘I want people to be honest about elections and what they can and can’t do in office.’
With 95 percent of the vote reporting, Gray received 49.5 percent of the vote to Nethercott’s 41.1 percent
Buchanan said it was particularly concerning that Gray was hosting screenings of the conspiracy theory-riddled documentary 2000 Mules, which alleges that ballot boxes were ‘stuffed’ across the country.
These claims are untrue.
‘You’ve got a candidate for secretary of state who is hosting streaming of that movie and in the same breath is saying, “I’m going to ban drop boxes,”‘ Buchanan said. ‘The implication is there is a connection between the movie and Wyoming and you’re playing on fears of the voters that is patently false.’
Nethercott received the endorsements of Wyoming Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis and retired Secretary of State Max Maxfield, but it wasn’t enough to cancel out the ex-president’s backing of Gray.
Two additional Republican secretary of state candidates nationally, Wes Allen in Alabama and Dominic Rapini of Connecticut have also cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election, but haven’t falsely alleged widespread fraud cost Trump the race.
