Audrey Trujillo, the Republican candidate for New Mexico Secretary of State, appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast in June to clarify why she’s satisfied former President Donald Trump received the 2020 election. 

“Any person requested me, ‘How are you aware Trump received New Mexico?’ and I’m like, ‘We didn’t see Biden indicators anyplace,’ ” Trujillo informed Bannon, podcast host and former Trump adviser, who’s awaiting sentencing on a federal conviction for contempt of Congress and individually dealing with expenses of fraud, cash laundering and conspiracy in New York State. 

“We noticed Trump indicators,” Trujillo stated. “We noticed enormous convoys. We had so many individuals that have been so excited to see Trump proceed in his presidency.”

Trujillo has embraced a variety of conspiracy theories, together with that President Joe Biden has been changed by a clone and that college shootings are carried out by a shadowy “deep state” so as to push gun management on the American public. Final 12 months, her social media account shared an antisemitic meme insinuating a Jewish conspiracy to push COVID-19 vaccines on the general public. She informed the Albuquerque Journal her account was hacked earlier than switching gears and claiming she could have shared the picture however didn’t have any “racist intent.”

She’s additionally a daily visitor on the conspiracy podcast “Spoken Phrases in New Mexico,” telling host Jordilynn Ortiz in August that legalized abortion is a plot in opposition to Black and Hispanic communities. 

“Have a look at the individuals who help BLM. They’re the identical those who help abortion,” Trujillo stated. “They usually don’t understand, the entire level of these Deliberate Parenthoods was to place ‘em in these areas the place we had the Black inhabitants, the place we had, you already know, Hispanics. To kill our infants!”

Solely 6% of Deliberate Parenthoods are positioned in majority-Black areas, and abortion bans disproportionately hurt individuals of coloration, in accordance with medical doctors, researchers and advocates. 

Regardless of her quite a few false claims, 33% of voters in New Mexico say they’d solid their ballots for her, in accordance with current polling by the Albuquerque Journal. Nonetheless, she trails incumbent Democrat Maggie Toulouse Oliver by a large margin, with 45% of probably voters favoring Toulouse Oliver. Trujillo can be far behind on fundraising, with solely $63,852 in her marketing campaign coffers in comparison with $466,231 raised by Toulouse Oliver. 

Regardless of the seemingly lengthy election odds, Trujillo has gained a measure of nationwide affect via her prolific use of social media and alliance with main far-right figures like Bannon. She is a member of a nationwide alliance of election-denying candidates vying to turn out to be their state’s prime elections administrator referred to as the “America First SOS Coalition.” She’s slated to seem on the Ruidoso Conference Heart on Oct. 7 together with main nationwide conspiracy figures Mike Lindell, Joe Oltmann and Seth Keshel. 

Trujillo ran unopposed within the N.M. major for the social gathering nomination, however little or no of her marketing campaign’s monetary help has come from Republican Get together PACs, with solely $2,700 whole PAC contributions to Trujillo over the course of the election cycle.

Mike Curtis, communications director for the Republican Get together of New Mexico, declined to reply questions in regards to the social gathering’s help for Trujillo, responding solely that Source New Mexico ought to direct inquiries to Trujillo’s marketing campaign. A current e mail flyer circulated by the social gathering marketed a meet-and-greet with Trujillo in Mesilla, although the flyer famous Trujillo’s personal marketing campaign was paying for the occasion. 

In response to Bret Schafer of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a nonpartisan suppose tank that works to fight authoritarian assaults on democracies worldwide, Trujillo constantly ranks among the many prime three most influential Secretary of State candidates on social media nationwide. The group maintains a instrument, the Midterm Monitor, for monitoring political candidates’ reactions and follows on numerous social media platforms.

Schafer stated it’s not possible to inform whether or not the reactions to Trujillo’s social media are pushed by supporters, opponents or just by “morbid curiosity.”

“I suppose in case you’re taking the glass-half-empty strategy, it could be that there’s important public curiosity within the platforms of election deniers,” he stated. “When you have been taking a extra optimistic view, it could be that that is additionally on the radar of the general public normally to push again.”

Schafer stated secretary of state positions are among the many most important elected workplaces, for the reason that winner features direct affect over the voting course of. 

“Being an election denier inherently suggests that you’re partisan in your leanings and have not less than engaged with, on some degree, conspiracy theories,” he stated. “And this isn’t only a drawback of narrative. You’re seeing in some circumstances that choices are being made, legal guidelines are being modified.” 

A conspiracy-fueled push to rely ballots by hand features traction

Schafer pointed to the instance of Nye County, Nevada, the place the county fee voted at hand rely all ballots, utilizing debunked conspiracy theories about voting machines as a rationale. Republican Nye County Clerk Sandra Merlino warned commissioners that hand counting is much less correct than machine tabulators and dangers introducing confusion into the method, earlier than resigning in frustration after the fee ignored her warnings. 

David Armiak, of the progressive watchdog group Heart for Media and Democracy, warned of the hazards of electing conspiracy theorists in even starker phrases.  

“We’re in serious trouble for democracy, as a result of if this group is available in energy, they might doubtlessly be in energy repeatedly” by altering election guidelines to make sure their very own re-election, he stated. “In order that’s shifting us in direction of authoritarianism or fascism.”

Rachel Orey, affiliate director of the Elections Challenge at Washington, D.C.-based suppose tank the Bipartisan Coverage Heart, stated the 2 main dangers of election deniers taking secretary of state positions are that they might doubtlessly disrupt election processes, and that they might undermine public confidence in elections.

“When you’ve gotten the spokespeople for elections in a state not believing the outcomes of the election… it’s going to additional the fracturing of the American public,” she stated. “I may completely see one other Jan. 6 occurring on the state degree. I hope that doesn’t come to fruition, however it’s on the desk.”

Election deniers rally behind an unrepentant Couy Griffin

Trujillo has been endorsed by David and Erin Clements, who’ve performed a significant function in sowing discord and disrupting elections in New Mexico, and have been named by NPR as among the most influential election deniers within the nation. David Clements claimed to have met with Trujillo in July, and Trujillo has repeatedly shared posts by the Clements on social media. 

David and Erin Clements have been the masterminds behind a statewide push for county commissions to refuse certification of the June 7 major elections. Commissioners in not less than three counties appearing on the Clements’ recommendation voted in opposition to certification, although all counties ultimately licensed the outcomes. Trujillo posted a message to Fb days after the election urging county commissioners to vote in opposition to certification. In Otero County, the New Mexico Supreme Court docket needed to step in and order the fee to certify the elections. 

Trujillo didn’t reply to emailed requests for remark for this story. David and Erin Clements declined to remark.

Alex Curtas, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Workplace in New Mexico, stated he thinks it’s unlikely that election deniers may trigger a complete breakdown within the state’s electoral system. 

“I feel our legal guidelines, the establishments we’ve, are actually good. And I feel they’d nonetheless maintain up, and the best way they’re structured would resist even an election denier being within the Secretary of State’s Workplace,” he stated.

Nonetheless, he stated, a conspiracy theorist taking the reins may trigger numerous harm. He pointed to the instance of the Otero County fee’s refusal to certify the first election outcomes. 

“We mobilized in a short time to provide as a lot data as we may to the Otero County clerk, the Otero County lawyer… and we needed to then take them to court docket to ensure the Otero County Fee appearing because the election board didn’t disenfranchise one thing like 8,000 voters,” he stated. “That situation… with somebody like Audrey Trujillo as Secretary of State would have performed out fairly completely different.”