This Tuesday, August 2, Arizona's Republican and Democratic primary elections will be held, and residents of the Grand Canyon State will be voting for everything from governor to secretary of state. On the GOP side, it remains to be seen whether the nominees will be far-right MAGA conspiracy theorists or more traditional conservatives — and the Donald Trump-backed MAGA candidates include gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and secretary of state hopeful Mark Finchem, both of whom have been campaigning on the Big Lie and making the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump.
Finchem, who serves in the Arizona House of Representatives, is way beyond conservative; he's a supporter of the far-right militia group the Oath Keepers who, in 2013, said that President Barack Obama was trying to establish a "totalitarian dictatorship." And if Finchem wins the primary on August 2 and goes on to win the general election in November, Arizona's top elections official will be someone who attended Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021 and falsely claims that President Joe Biden wasn't legitimately elected.
