Voting.
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Election denial was unofficially on the ballot in the 2022 midterms. Most of the 291 Republican candidates running for House, Senate, and key statewide offices had previously "denied or questioned the outcome of the last presidential election," according to The Washington Post. And many took their cues from former President Donald Trump, parroting his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, and attempting to seed doubt among voters about the legitimacy of the midterms. But in the end, "denier candidates fared especially poorly" in the year's "most competitive races," as well as the statewide contests dictating to how elections are run. "Democracy and reasonableness scored some important victories on Tuesday," the Post editorial board declares. "Americans should be relieved."

Indeed, it's clear "voters care enough about democracy to reject those who would undermine it," says Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute. That said, support for election deniers in general was still "shockingly high," says Waldman; for example, more than 170 election-denying Republican candidates had won their midterms contest as of Nov. 17. And, as the Post points out, exit polls suggest one-third of voters still don't trust the outcome of the 2020 election.

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Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.