A Trump-backed conspiracy theorist who won an Arizona GOP primary suggested his own election was suspicious

• Trump-backed Mark Finchem won Arizona's GOP primary for secretary of state on Tuesday.
• But at an election watch party, he appeared to cast doubt on his own race, a Boston Globe journalist reported.

Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem, a Trump-endorsed conspiracy theorist who won the state's GOP primary for secretary of state on Tuesday, suggested his own election was suspicious.

At an election watch party on Tuesday night for Arizona's GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, Boston Globe journalist Jess Bidgood reported that Finchem was questioning the election he just won earlier that evening.

"I've got people all over the state saying, 'I've gotten ballots that I didn't ask for,'" Finchem said without evidence, according to Bidgood.

National and state GOP officials called out voting issues during Arizona's primary races on Tuesday, calling ballot issues in Pinal County a "comprehensive failure" after some precincts ran out of ballots.

"Stay in line. Don't let them 'run out of ballots.' Stay in line and you will be able to vote," Finchem tweeted on Tuesday.

Finchem, who embraced QAnon conspiracy theories and marched on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, received over 243,000 votes in Tuesday's race, accounting for nearly 41% of the total ballots cast and beating his nearest competitor by almost 100,000 votes.

If elected as secretary of state, Finchem would run the state's elections.

Former president Donald Trump endorsed Finchem last month, saying he "is tough, strong, and he loves his state."

Finchem has long supported Trump's baseless election fraud claims and endorsed the GOP-sanctioned controversial vote audit in Arizona's Maricopa County.

Trump allies had hoped to use the audit of Arizona's 2020 presidential election results to strengthen the baseless voter fraud claims, but the results actually ended up further validating Joe Biden's victory.