Two houses Republicans who have been promoted QAnon conspiracy theory return to Washington.
U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) defeated their Democratic opponents in the November midterm elections — although Boebert’s race was tighter than anticipated.
Both were sworn in on Tuesday during the convening of the new Congress.
QAnon-affiliated candidates on statewide ballots did poorly in the November election. Twenty-seven candidates for Congress, governor or secretary of state with ties to the conspiracy movement were defeated.
HuffPost used it extensive research by Media Matters, a liberal media watchdog group, for a tally of QAnon-linked candidates. Of the 29 candidates in this tally, 23 are Republicans, five are independents, and one is a Democrat.
Even if some of these QAnon caucuses won, the presence of so many of these candidates on the ballot is still a five-alarm fire for American democracy.
The QAnon conspiracy theory is an anti-democratic authoritarian fantasy that imagines a “global” or “deep state” of Satan-worshiping pedophiles – many prominent Democrats among them – who will be en masse arrested, and possibly executed, by the former. President Donald Trump.
During Trump’s presidency he increasingly played footsie with QAnon supporters, repeatedly refusing to denounce the movement. However, since leaving the White House, Trump has been open to QAnon, often sharing memes of the movement on Truth Social.
Meanwhile Boebert and Greene, who were first elected in 2020 after expressing their support for QAnon, and who are the two most sycophantic Trump supporters in Congress, have issued a public blow about who should be the next Speaker of the House.
At the Turning Point USA conference in Phoenix, Boebert attacked Greene for supporting current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) for speaker.
“I’ve aligned myself with Marjorie and been accused of believing many of the things she believes,” Boebert said. “I don’t believe this like I don’t believe in … Jewish laser board,” he added, referring to one of Greene’s most widely mocked statements.
Greene responded by accusing Boebert of stirring up “high school drama” in the House, and noted that Boebert almost never won again.
“I have supported and donated to Lauren Boebert. President Trump has supported and donated to Lauren Boebert. Kevin McCarthy has supported and donated to Lauren Boebert. She barely got 500 votes,” Greene tweeted.
Boebert won re-election in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District after a recount, receiving just 50.06% of the vote. Polls initially predicted that he would defeat his Democratic opponent Adam Frisch.
Boebert already appeared on various QAnon shows and podcasts, including a 2020 episode where he was asked if he was familiar with the “Q movement.” Boebert replied that he was “very familiar” and added that he hoped QAnon’s predictions were true because “it just means America is getting stronger and better.”
After his resignation, Boebert later claimed that he was not part of the movement, but added that QAnon could mean “a lot of different things to different people.”
Greene, who represents Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, easily won re-election in November. He repeatedly promoted QAnon on social media before he was first elected to office in 2020. He also once posted a video about “Q”, an anonymous poster on 4Chan and other online forums who claimed to have high-level government security, and who regularly posted cryptic prophecy about when Trump will start a “storm” and defeat the enemy.
Greene called Q a “patriot” and “worth listening to.”
He later also tried to distance himself from the QAnon conspiracy movement, telling Fox News that Q had misled him with “misinformation” about the 2018 midterm elections.
But he finds himself in a position to make good on promises from Republican leaders in the House.
Many stores have reported that Greene — who, beyond promoting QAnon, was a keynote speaker at a white supremacy conference earlier this year — is being considered for the new House congressional leadership position.
That’s the explanation for the public support of McCarthy, who is considering Greene for a coveted position on the House Oversight Committee, according to Axios. Greene also reportedly received a promise from Republican leaders to launch an investigation into the federal government’s treatment of defendants jailed for their alleged roles in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Elsewhere around the country, QAnon-affiliated candidates nearly won some races but ended up losing.
Jim Marchant lost the race for Nevada secretary of state by less than 25,000 votes out of over a million votes. Marchant follows the QAnon account on social media and appeared at the QAnon conference in Las Vegas.
JR Majewski, the GOP nominee to represent Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, was defeated by incumbent Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D), lost by 13 percentage points.
Majewski – a Trump-endorsed candidate attending the January 6, 2021 uprising – once appeared on Fox News wearing a QAnon T-shirt and has made Q-related posts on social media. He was once too said, “I believe everything that has come out of Q.” He added that he found the conspiracy theory “mind-opening”.
In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, the Republican gubernatorial candidate who declined the nomination, lost the race against Democrat Josh Shapiro.
Mastriano has promoted QAnon at least 50 times on Twitter and has own allies with some QAnon believers. In April, he attended an event hosted by QAnoners in Gettysburg, where the host presented him with a longsword.
If it has has been elected, Mastriano definitely choose secretary of state, a position that controls the Pennsylvania election process during the 2024 presidential election, raising fears that he may have refused to confirm the Republican defeat and cause a constitutional crisis.
Pennsylvania is unique in that the governor appoints the secretary of state. Most states hold elections for these positions.
Four QAnon-affiliated secretary of state candidates, including Marchant in Nevada, are on the statewide ballot. All of them — including independent Terpsehore Tore Maras in Ohio, Republican Kristina Karamo in Michigan and Republican Mark Finchem in Arizona — lost their races.