WISCONSIN – Candidates who support former president Donald Trump’s unfounded claims of election fraud in 2020 are racking up defeats in battleground states.

Nationally, more than 225 candidates for governor, secretary of state, attorney general and US Congress on the ballot on Tuesday were election deniers.

But the most closely watched races were for key positions in the swing states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that would put the winners in a position to oversee the 2024 election.

Some election deniers will be headed to the US Senate, including Mr Ted Budd in North Carolina, Mr JD Vance in Ohio and Mr Markwayne Mullin in Oklahoma. But New Hampshire Senate candidate Don Bolduc lost to incumbent Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon defeated election denier Kim Crockett to win a third term, in a closely watched race for the state’s top elections official.

Mr Simon beat Ms Crockett, 55 per cent to 45 per cent, with most votes counted, according to the Associated Press. Ms Crockett’s campaign centred on her baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

A former state representative, Mr Simon won re-election as secretary of state in 2018 by nearly 9 percentage points, but he faced an unexpectedly competitive race against Ms Crockett, who called the 2020 election “rigged” and “illegitimate.”

The Minnesota secretary of state race was a top target for Democratic-aligned groups that spent US$46 million (S$54 million) in an effort to stop election deniers from taking offices with power over upcoming elections.

Big wins for Democrats in Wisconsin, Michigan

Wisconsin’s Democratic Governor Tony Evers won a second term, defeating a Republican who questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election in the battleground state.

With almost all the votes counted, Mr Evers beat construction company co-owner Tim Michels 51 per cent to 48 per cent, according to race calls by ABC and NBC.

A first-time candidate, Mr Michels won a crowded Republican primary and was endorsed by Mr Trump, who said Mr Michels would help “end the well-documented fraud in our elections”.

Mr Michels said, if elected, he would consider a Bill to decertify the 2020 election, a move backed by some election deniers that has no basis in state or federal law.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer defeated election denier Tudor Dixon, winning a second term in the presidential battleground state.

Ms Whitmer beat the conservative commentator after a campaign in which Ms Dixon repeatedly cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election.

Ms Dixon’s general-election campaign sought to tie Ms Whitmer to Mr Biden on the economy, criticised pandemic mandates and raised questions about the effect of school closures on test scores.

Ms Whitmer, by contrast, highlighted her support of abortion rights and leaned on a last-minute appearance by former president Barack Obama, who won the state twice.

After the 2020 vote, Ms Dixon spread Mr Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud, even tweeting in response to him that “leftists” had planned to “steal an election”, and saying that “their voter fraud” was “sloppy and obvious”.

They were at the Capitol, and lost

US Representative Marcy Kaptur defeated an election denier who was outside the Capitol on Jan 6 in a closely watched race in Ohio.

The longest-serving woman currently in Congress, Ms Kaptur beat Mr J.R. Majewski, after a barrage of ads featuring footage of the attack on the Capitol.

Mr Majewski first gained attention after using 120 gallons of chalk paint to turn his lawn into a massive “Trump 2020” banner, which he later modified to “Trump 2Q2Q” in an apparent reference to the QAnon conspiracy theory.

He attended Mr Trump’s Jan 6 rally near the White House and then made his way to the steps of the Capitol, later saying he “wanted nothing more than to go in that building”, but couldn’t because he was with people who had physical limitations.

The National Republican Congressional Committee withdrew planned ad spending in Mr Majewski’s race after the Associated Press reported that he misrepresented his military service, claiming he was deployed in combat in Afghanistan when he was actually in Qatar.

Mr Majewski claimed his military records are “classified” and called the story a “hit piece.”

Democrat Josh Shapiro defeated Republican Doug Mastriano in the governor’s race in Pennsylvania after a sustained ad campaign that targeted the Republican for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Mr Mastriano was outside the US Capitol during the Jan 6 insurrection and worked as a state senator to try to overturn Mr Trump’s loss to Mr Biden.

The governor’s race was not solely about election denial.

Mr Shapiro also hit Mr Mastriano for pledging to ban all abortions in the state, and for his ties to Christian White nationalists.

Mr Mastriano’s campaign criticised mask mandates during the coronavirus pandemic and called for bans on critical race theory in state schools and restricting public benefits for undocumented immigrants.

The win came amid last-minute concern over voting in Pennsylvania. After a Republican lawsuit led the state Supreme Court to order undated mail ballots be thrown out, local elections officials in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas notified at-risk voters, who stood in long lines to get replacement ballots. BLOOMBERG