Gambling on Some Light Election Denialism In Pennsylvania

Happy Thursday!

The Republican nominee in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race is engaged in a delicate balancing act as she attempts to appeal to President Trump and his base of supporters while also trying to win over undecided voters or those who elected the state’s Democratic incumbent. For a Republican in a swing state in 2026, that means finding your election denialism equilibrium. 

Facing little opposition, Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI), an established election denier who voted against certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in two key states, is expected to easily secure the Republican nomination for governor in Wisconsin during Tuesday’s primary election.

In Rough Edges, Mike Rothschild writes about fringe groups, conspiracy theories and how the Internet broke our brains. This column is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

With a potential midterm wipeout just three months away, Republicans have been recycling past conspiracy theories to an epic extent, mining the greatest hits of a decade of paranoid plots both to please the president and to invoke memories of the “good old days.” 

From the Senate’s contentious hearings that saw Dr. Anthony Fauci grilled with lockdown-era conspiracy theories to President Trump’s continued evocation that the 2020 election was stolen, Republicans are both replaying the past and actively rewriting it, trying to distract their voters from current crises and rally them around Trump’s brand one last time.

It’s impossible to look at the run-up to the 2026 midterms without examining the repackaging and reuse of the conspiracy theories that got us here. The midterms might be the last chance we see some of them used with any real efficacy, and nobody is missing their shot.

In the wake of now-Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow victory over the Democratic establishment-backed candidate Rep. Haley Stevens in Tuesday’s primary, President Trump is back to his old ways, giving a platform to MAGA conspiracy theories about how Detroit runs its elections.

By now, you may have seen the headlines about Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) dragging former Trump and Biden administration health official Dr. Anthony Fauci before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee — during which he berated him for pleading the fifth and kicked Fauci’s attorney out of the hearing.

‘We Have Seen Them Weaponize It’

It appears as though New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) will not comply with the Justice Department’s demands for the identities of the 6,600 noncitizens who were, through no fault of their own, placed on the voter rolls in 2023 and 2024.