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Former US President Donald Trump
Photo: MANDEL NGAN / AFP
What influence does former President Donald Trump still have on Republicans?
The preliminary votes within the party for the US elections in November are considered an important mood test.
They have now taken place in several US states – and in many places the winners have been candidates who support Trump and have often spread his lies in the past without objection.
On November 8, the so-called midterm elections will take place in the USA, in which the House of Representatives, around a third of the Senate and other office holders in the states will be re-elected.
The current primary elections decide which candidates will fight for which party for the mandates.
According to the current status, there will probably be many supporters of Trump among the Republicans.
In Arizona, for example, the party nominated Mark Finchem as a candidate for the post of »Secretary of State« – a post whose holder is responsible, among other things, for conducting elections in the state.
Finchem was present at the protests that culminated in the storming of the Capitol in January 2021.
To this day, he maintains that Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
In the past, according to the New York Times, the Republican had also confessed to being a member of the far-right militia Oath Keepers and had appeared at events organized by the conspiracy movement QAnon.
In addition to Finchem, two other Trump supporters, Kari Lake and Blake Masters, were able to prevail in the primaries in the state.
Lake will run for governor and Blake for the Senate.
Both also support Trump's untruthful narrative of the stolen 2020 presidential election. Lake has even called for Democratic politician Katie Hobbs, Arizona's election chief, to be jailed over the alleged fraud.
Trump is flirting with another presidential candidacy
Several Trump supporters also won the internal party primaries in Michigan.
Presenter Tudor Dixon will run for governor there.
After the 2020 presidential election, Dixon also spread conspiracy theories about alleged voter fraud.
The Republican will run against Democratic incumbent Gretchen Whitmer.
In addition, John Gibbs, a Trump-backed candidate for the House of Representatives, also prevailed.
Gibbs won the primary against Peter Meijer, who voted in 2021 as one of ten Republicans to impeach Trump.
So far, he has not officially said whether Trump wants to run for US President again in 2024, but he has often flirted with a renewed candidacy.
He recently said during an election campaign appearance: "Maybe we have to do it again." However, Trump could have strong internal competition, for example from Ron DeSantis, Florida's governor (read more about him here).
so called/Reuters
