Syndicated columnist Susan Estrich: The election deniers

In an important survey, The Washington Post found that a majority of Republican nominees on the ballot for Senate, House and key statewide offices deny the results of the 2020 election. That's some 299 candidates in all; and of those, 173 are running for safe seats, and another 52 are in close races.

This isn't just about an ideological split. This is a division that goes to the core of our democracy. Can it be that the class of 2022 will be known as the one committed to toppling our democracy?

That is certainly what's been happening in Republican primaries, where election deniers have triumphed in state after state. Indeed, in many respects, the survey concluded, the "movement" - if you can call it that - is stronger today than it was two years ago.

It's almost comforting to believe that some of these Republicans are just cowards playing to the crowds and really don't believe what they're saying. Almost. When they take office, however, they will do so with the backing of the true believers, and they may well be called upon to put their money where their mouths are. Which should be scary.

Imagine Republicans take control of the House, as many expect they will, and their caucus is dominated by those who deny the legitimacy of the Biden administration. After the violence of Jan. 6, 139 Republicans voted against the Electoral College count, and there will be even more deniers in the next Congress.

Academics will tell you that denying the legitimacy of democratic election results is the first step toward an authoritarian coup. If it sounds far-fetched, so did what happened on Jan. 6. Is that the new face of the Republican opposition?

There will be close races in this midterm. There will be close calls. There is a long tradition in politics in which losers are supposed to concede with grace, to accept the results. But there is the former president of the United States telling crowds in Michigan, "I don't believe we'll ever have a fair election again."

What does that mean? If we'll never have a fair election again, per Donald Trump, does that mean every election that a Republican denier loses is an unfair election?

In fact, election law experts are going to be doing record business come this fall, as it is already being predicted that there will be more challenges than usual to the results. Those challenges in turn pose an even greater challenge to the institution as a whole, to avoid the corruption that comes when losers don't accept the consequences.

And the consequences go beyond the fall, and could poison future presidential contests, as the election deniers take control of the machinery of state elections in critical states. The proportion of election deniers happens to be especially high in what were three of the battleground states - Arizona, Georgia and Michigan - in the 2020 election. Those states will surely figure prominently in any general election in the future.

What Trump has done, and what the deniers have done, is to give legitimacy to sore losers at the expense of democratic values. But finding Republicans who will stand up and say that may be even more difficult now than it was two years ago. That's because the wind just keeps on blowing in Trump's direction. But it's at the expense of the precious values of our democracy, which at the end of the day should count for more than tomorrow's poll numbers.

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