- The run-up to Election Day 2022 was marred by fears of chaos and refusals to concede.
- A slew of Trump-backed candidates who rejected the legitimacy of the 2020 election were on the ballot.
Late into the night on Election Day 2020, then-President Donald Trump took to the White House podium and declared victory against the advice of his own campaign manager.
"Frankly, we did win this election," Trump said, despite the fact that millions of votes were still being counted and his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, had taken the lead in several key states.
Trump spent the next two months whipping his base into a frenzy that culminated in thousands of angry Trump supporters laying siege to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. At least five people died as a result.
This year, there were fears of renewed chaos as Trump — banished from social media in the wake of the Capitol riot but still very much the focus of national attention — positioned himself as GOP kingmaker, handing out endorsements to candidates he viewed as promising, many of whom echoed his false claims that the 2020 election was illegitimate.
Concerns that Election Day 2022 would be marred by disputes and denials multiplied as many of those candidates either lost their races or were locked in races that were too close to call. Trump himself fanned the flames by taking to his social media site, Truth Social, on Tuesday to spread bogus claims of voter fraud in Michigan.
But it turns out fears of widespread election-related chaos and violence were overblown.
Election Day went smoothly, and while there were minor issues in places like Maricopa County, Arizona, they were quickly identified and resolved and there were no broader infrastructure problems. Taking a lesson from the 2020 election, cybersecurity and election security officials also stepped up efforts to combat disinformation related to this year's midterms.
And as CNN reported, even the judiciary played a role when a federal judge issued a ruling earlier this month cracking down on an election-monitoring group's activities around polling centers in Arizona that were criticized as intimidating voters.
Crucially, many of Trump's handpicked candidates conceded defeat when their races were called.
On Wednesday, Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon's campaign put out a statement saying she had called Democratic incumbent Gretchen Whitmer "to concede and wish her well." She went on to thank her supporters and said that "we came up short, but we will never stop fighting for our families."
Matthew DePerno, the Republican candidate for Michigan attorney general whose platform included "[prosecuting] the people who corrupted the 2020 election and allowed fraud to permeate the entire election system," also conceded to Democratic incumbent Dana Nessel on Wednesday.
"Although I may be conceding to Dana Nessel today, I refuse to concede that Michigan is a blue state," DePerno wrote on Twitter.
Over in Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor and political neophyte who landed Trump's endorsement in his bid for a Senate seat, conceded to his Democratic opponent, John Fetterman, after the race was called for Fetterman.
"This morning I called John Fetterman and congratulated him," Oz said in a statement Wednesday morning. "I wish him and his family all the best, both personally and as our next United States Senator."
There are still some key holdouts, however, and several races have yet to be called.
Doug Mastriano, the Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor, has not conceded as of Thursday morning despite losing by nearly 15 percentage points to Democratic candidate Josh Shapiro.
Kristina Karamo, the Republican who mounted a bid to unseat Jocelyn Benson in Michigan's secretary of state election, also hasn't conceded and instead made vague and unsupported claims of voter fraud. She lost to Benson 42% to 55%.
In Arizona, the GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake — one of the most vocal and prominent 2020 election deniers — lambasted the "cheaters and crooks" in charge of running elections and expressed confidence that she would win. Roughly 77% of the votes have been counted so far, and Katie Hobbs, the Democratic candidate and Arizona's former secretary of state, is ahead by less than one percent, or a little over 13,000 votes.
Concerns about voter intimidation and mob violence increased in the days leading up to midterms and reached a critical point after last month's attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband.
Paul Pelosi was asleep at the family's home in San Francisco, California when a man broke in demanding to know "Where is Nancy?" according to court documents. The suspect, David DePape, is facing federal charges of assault and attempted kidnapping. He also faces state charges of attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, and burglary.
An FBI affidavit accompanying the federal complaint against DePape said investigators believe he "was prepared to detain and injure Speaker Pelosi when he entered the Pelosi residence" on October 28. He had "zip ties, tape, rope, and at least one hammer with him that morning," it said.
A look at DePape's internet and social media activity showed racist and antisemitic rants, as well as conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election, QAnon, the so-called global elites, the death of Jeffrey Epstein, and COVID-19.
His shouts upon entering the Pelosis' home — "Where is Nancy?" — also echoed those of the pro-Trump rioters who overran the US Capitol on January 6. And in the immediate aftermath of the attack, far-right figures continued pushing conspiracy theories that were proven false by DePape's own statements to law enforcement officials.
Though midterm results are still coming in for some of the tightest races and control of both the House and Senate is undetermined, in the 48 hours since Election Day kicked off, there have been few apparent acts of violence or intimidation.
That said, experts warn that it may be too soon to say the US is entirely out of the woods.
Indeed, political scientists told Insider's John Haltiwanger that the far-right wing in the US has vilified political opponents to the point that they've become targets of violence and that creates lasting damage.
"I think it would be a mistake to assume that the threat of violence stops after the midterm elections," Kurt Braddock, an American University professor who studies far-right extremism," told Insider.
Chris Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency who was fired by Trump after the 2020 election, struck a similar tone but expressed optimism about this year's elections.
"The coming days and possible weeks will provide plenty of opportunity for domestic and foreign actors to continue to undermine our elections and manufacture chaos," Krebs told CNN. "It'll be a real test of our mental toughness, but I'm much more confident today than I was yesterday in our ability to cut through the nonsense and defend democracy."