Election denial loses its usefulness for GOP 

In a half-dozen battleground states last Tuesday, Republicans who had embraced or entertained the disastrous “stop the steal” canard of 2020 lost their bids to capture the key offices from which they could have controlled local election systems.

That narrow but important aspect of the voting results should come as a relief to Americans of all political views. After all, only an energized faction ever bought into the dangerous fable, promoted by ex-President Donald Trump, that the Democrats engaged in a vast conspiracy to rig the ballot system.

Those with the responsibility to administer elections — whether guided by governors or lawmakers or secretaries of state — withstood an unnecessary but real political stress test on their credibility. GOP candidates for secretary of state in Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada who parroted Trump’s false 2020 fraud claims lost their elections.

More vividly, Georgia’s GOP secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who was pressured and threatened by Trump personally to falsely fix well-canvassed results after the fact, prevailed at the polls after beating a Trump-backed insurgent in the primary.

“This was a vote for normalcy,” Raffensperger said after he won last week.

In New York, Lee Zeldin, despite his backers’ disappointment, properly conceded his loss to Gov. Kathy Hochul. That’s significant because on Jan. 6, 2021, Zeldin — who this year defied early expectations and led a localized red wave on Long Island — went along with many GOP House colleagues to oppose Joe Biden’s routine certification as president-elect.

“I would like to congratulate New York Governor Kathy Hochul on her election to a full four-year term,” Zeldin said in a statement issued by his campaign the following day. “This race was a once in a generation campaign, with a very close margin in the bluest of blue states."

Pennsylvania Republican Doug Mastriano, despite being in the 2020 denial camp, conceded, too. “Difficult to accept as the results are, there is no right course but to concede, which I do,” the candidate for governor said Sunday in a statement.

The timing of it all is most fortunate. Obviously, that's because Trump, according to several associates, is expected to announce on Tuesday his third candidacy for the White House.

On Thursday, Trump said on the online platform Truth Social that the GOP “may very well win the Senate Majority, depending on whether or not Arizona or Nevada Elections are RIGGED (which I believe they are!)” Since then it has become clear that the Democrats will retain close control of the Senate.

Even before he won in 2016, Trump emptily claimed it was all rigged against him. But the consensus message of Republicans and Democrats last week should give us all hope. It suggests the national Republican Party, and thus the country, are moving past a preposterous and dangerous lie.