“Nobody in any election in America gets 74% of the votes. Ever. It doesn’t happen.”
The Pants on Fire claim that ‘nobody in any election in America gets 74% of the votes’
If your time is short
• In 2020 alone, a candidate was able to win a U.S. House general election by at least 74% of the vote dozens of times.
• Even just looking at Trump’s endorsed candidates, at least 59 have won races so far this year with between 74% and 100% of the vote.
• On the same primary election day in Georgia, three Trump-endorsed candidates won with at least 74% of the vote.
Nearly a week after Georgia’s primary — an election in which two of Donald Trump’s endorsed candidates failed to knock off Republican incumbents he’d targeted for defeat — the former president sent a blast email touting a blog post by conservative commentator Emerald Robinson.
Robinson, who was taken off the air by the conservative channel Newsmax after sending controversial tweets and was also permanently suspended by Twitter, wrote a Substack post echoing Trump’s longstanding (and debunked) complaints about rigged elections. The post was titled, “Something Stinks In Georgia: The GOP primary numbers are funny because the votes were rigged.”
In her May 26 post, Robinson expressed disbelief that even though Trump’s national win-loss record in endorsements “stands at 92-7,” several of Trump’s top targets in Georgia — incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp and incumbent Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — beat Trump-backed primary challengers. Kemp defeated former Sen. David Perdue, 74% to 22%, while Raffensperger defeated Rep. Jody Hice, 52% to 33%.
Robinson wrote that the RealClearPolitics.com average of pre-primary polls showed that Kemp was averaging 52% support, compared with 38% for Perdue. Yet “on primary day in Georgia,” she added, “Kemp gets 74% and Perdue gets 22%. Nobody in any election in America gets 74% of the votes. Ever. It doesn’t happen. Obvious fraud.”
No credible evidence has surfaced of widespread fraud. And it’s wrong to say that “nobody in any election in America gets 74% of the votes.”
For instance, more than four dozen U.S. House general elections in 2020 alone produced blowouts bigger than Kemp’s over Perdue.
But the most illustrative way to debunk Robinson’s assertion is to look at the primary races in which Trump has made an endorsement this year.
In five statewide races so far, a Trump-endorsed candidate has notched more than 74% of the vote in a primary: Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky (86.3%), Arkansas attorney general candidate Tim Griffin (85.7%), Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar (83.8%), Arkansas gubernatorial candidate Sarah Huckabee Sanders (83.4%), and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (78.7%). Another three Trump-backed statewide candidates ran unopposed, effectively winning 100% of the vote.
Democrats have won races with at least 74% as well. In North Carolina, Senate candidate Cheri Beasley won her primary with 81%, while in Texas, Beto O’Rourke won his gubernatorial primary with 91%. In Ohio, Reps. Joyce Beatty and Marcy Kaptur were unopposed. In Pennsylvania, six incumbent Democratic members of Congress were unopposed, and one, Dwight Evans, won with 76% of the vote.
The list of Trump-endorsed U.S. House candidates with landslide primary victories is even longer. Trump counts among his endorsements 31 candidates who ran unopposed in the Republican primary. And he endorsed an additional 20 candidates who ended up winning more than 74% of the vote.
Notably, several other Trump-backed candidates approached or exceeded 74% of the vote in the very same Georgia primary.
Rep. Rick Allen won his primary unopposed, while fellow Georgia Reps. Buddy Carter and Andrew Clyde won with 82.2% and 76.6% of the vote, respectively. Two other Trump-backed candidates in Georgia won with margins almost as large as Kemp’s: Senate candidate Herschel Walker (68.7%) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (70.4%).
In all, about one-third of Trump’s endorsees’ victories came from races in which the endorsee faced no opponent at all.
Our ruling
Robinson wrote, “Nobody in any election in America gets 74% of the votes. Ever. It doesn’t happen.”
It happens all the time. It occurred in dozens of general elections for U.S. House seats in 2020. Even just looking at Trump’s endorsed candidates, at least 59 have won races with between 74% and 100% of the vote so far this year.
On the same primary election day in Georgia, three Trump-endorsed candidates won with at least 74% of the vote.
We rate the statement Pants on Fire!
RELATED: All of our fact-checks about elections
RELATED: All of our fact-checks about Georgia
Our Sources
Emerald Robinson, "Something Stinks In Georgia," May 26, 2022
Ballotpedia, list of endorsements by Donald Trump, accessed May 31, 2022
Ballotpedia, "Congressional margin of victory analysis," accessed May 31, 2022
