Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters (R) is breaking with former President Donald Trump on a significant issue.
During a debate with Sen. Mark Kelly (D) on Thursday night, Masters was asked if the 2020 election was stolen or rigged “in any way, shape, or form enough to keep Donald Trump out of the White House.”
“I suspect that if the FBI didn’t work with big tech and big media to censor the Hunter Biden crime story, I suspect that changed a lot of peoples’ votes,” he responded. “I suspect President Trump would be in the White House today if big tech and big media and the FBI didn’t work together to put the thumb on the scale to get Joe Biden in there.”
The moderator asked, “But not vote counting, not election results?”
“Yeah, I haven’t seen evidence of that,” he added.
Watch the video below:
Arizona Republican Senate nominee Blake Masters breaks with Donald Trump and says he “hasn’t seen evidence” of voter fraud in the 2020 election. pic.twitter.com/VYhmwcKAon
— The Recount (@therecount) October 7, 2022
Trump has repeatedly claimed the 2020 election was stolen. However, several recounts and legal challenges have not found evidence to support his allegations or alter the election results.
Masters’ referred to the move to restrict the reach of a 2020 story from the New York Post about a laptop belonging to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. The move came amid concerns the laptop might be Russian disinformation. However, The Washington Post and The New York Times have since confirmed the laptop was real.
It is perfectly fair to insist cracking down on the story about the son of a presidential candidate altered the way people voted.
What is not okay is to claim without evidence that widespread fraud swung the election.
Masters has previously removed language from his website claiming the 2020 election was a “rotten mess.”
So Thursday’s comments seem to be a welcome sign he may be pivoting away from raising doubts about the election for good.
To be sure, Masters has espoused some other wild views, such as listing Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, as his “recommended subversive thinker.” So there is that.
Hopefully, Masters does not pull a Don Bolduc — the New Hampshire Republican Senate candidate who claimed the election was stolen, then said it was not, and now claims he cannot say if it was stolen or not.
Trump and Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake probably will not like Masters’ stance.
But it will be better for our democracy if he holds to his latest view.
