In the hours leading up to his rally this past weekend in Delaware, former President Donald Trump endorsed, among others, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
Trump has made false claims about the 2020 election being stolen and advanced conspiracy theories about voting on social media. LaRose, the state’s chief elections official has ridden a tough line to get Trump’s endorsement.
After the November 2020 election, Trump's Twitter feed was full of falsehoods about the election. Many of his false comments were cited by people who were trying to prevent the election of President Joe Biden from being certified.
In fact, Twitter permanently suspended Trump from the platform just two days after the January 6 insurrection "due to the risk of further incitement of violence." To be clear, Trump wasn't the only person who was making false and sometimes dangerous statements. Twitter also pulled other accounts. But the action against Trump got the most attention.
A month later, in February 2020, LaRose criticized Trump and other key figures who cast unfounded doubt on the accuracy of U.S. elections.
“It is irresponsible to fearmonger about elections administration. Doesn’t matter who you are," LaRose said. "And certainly, if you have the largest megaphone in the world, you should think very carefully before you say something that would cause people to lose faith in elections."
LaRose has praised Ohio’s 2020 election, which Trump won by 8 percentage points, as a success. But he hasn’...
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