Washington CNN —
Republican Michigan congressional candidate John Gibbs is falsely claiming that the 2020 election results could not possibly be correct – and citing irrelevant statistical tidbits as his supposed evidence.
“I think when you look at the results of the 2020 election, there are anomalies in there, to put it very lightly, that are simply mathematically impossible,” Gibbs said during a televised roundtable discussion that aired this past weekend on WOOD TV8 of Grand Rapids.
Gibbs has the endorsement of former President Donald Trump. He is a former US Department of Housing and Urban Development official who is trying to unseat incumbent Rep. Peter Meijer, who voted to impeach Trump after the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol, in the Republican congressional primary in Michigan’s 3rd District.
To justify his “simply mathematically impossible” claim, Gibbs cited two pieces of supposed evidence that are not evidence at all.
First, like Trump has since 2020, Gibbs talked about Trump’s performance in so-called bellwether counties – the small list of counties that had for decades been won by the presidential candidate who also won the presidency. “A bellwether county,” Gibbs said, “is a county such that whichever candidate wins it, they won the election with 100% predictability. Well, President Trump won almost every single bellwether county but still ended up losing the election somehow, which is very anomalous to say the least.”
Next, Gibbs pointed to the fact that...
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