GOP Rep. Michael Guest faces runoff in Mississippi for voting for the Jan. 6 commission

Guest, who is running for his third term, faced a primary challenge from Michael Cassidy, a former Navy pilot, who centered his campaign around the notion that Guest was not conservative enough for deep-red Mississippi. Cassidy narrowly beat Guest in Tuesday’s primary, but neither received more than 50 percent of the vote, forcing them into a head-to-head runoff on June 28.

Cassidy is among several Republicans prevailing in primary elections this year who have continued to spread false claims that the 2020 election results were stolen from former president Donald Trump. In Ohio, J.R. Majewski, who attended the Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally and who has ties to the QAnon conspiracy theory, beat out three Republicans in a congressional primary. In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, who also attended the rally of election deniers on the National Mall, won the state’s gubernatorial primary.

Guest was among the 147 Republicans who, after the Jan. 6 attack, voted against certifying President Biden’s victory. A month later he signed an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit challenging the 2020 results. Most recently, he co-sponsored the “Women’s Bill of Rights” resolution to define “sex” as a person’s biological sex — an attempt to weaken rights for transgender women — which he said is needed as “the radical left continues to push a woke ideology on women.”

But to Cassidy, Guest’s decision to join 34 other House Republicans to set up a special commission to review the activities surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol attack was an unforgivable act of disloyalty.

Neither Cassidy nor Guest immediately responded to requests for comment on their race.

In a local news interview a week ago, Cassidy attacked Guest over his support for the Jan. 6 committee, which begins its public hearings on Thursday. “It is the capstone of the democratic witch hunt of Trump and the republican party. The media and the democrats worked in cahoots with each other, so blinded by hatred of Trump,” he told the Columbian-Progress.

Former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon interviewed Cassidy on Wednesday for his War Room show, a popular platform for the Make America Great Again movement. Candidates who appear on Bannon’s show are Trump devotees and believe the 2020 election was stolen from him. In exchange for that fealty, Bannon introduces them to his millions of radio listeners, which also can translate to new donors.

“That Mr. Guest voted for the Jan. 6 commission, when people found out about that, they were furious if they didn’t know about it already. And so it was actually somewhat easy pickings once you tell people about your congressman,” Cassidy told Bannon. “He continues to defend that vote to this day … he hasn’t said anything about the political prisoners being held for being up on the Capitol that day.”

Trump has endorsed dozens of candidates at every level of government this year, but Cassidy did not receive the former president’s coveted support ahead of the primary.

Congressional hopefuls aren’t the only candidates who are winning Republican primaries around the country. Republican voters in two states so far have chosen secretary of state candidates who embrace the lies about the election being stolen. If elected, they would have direct oversight of their state’s elections. Audrey Trujillo, who ran unopposed in the New Mexico primary Tuesday, has been vocal in her baseless criticisms of the 2020 results. Last month, the Michigan Republican Party voted to advance Kristina Karamo as their nominee — the state doesn’t have primary elections for down-ballot races — to be secretary of state. Karamo has also spread unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Not all Republicans who have bucked Trump have lost their elections. On Tuesday in South Dakota, Rep. Dusty Johnson, who voted both to certify Biden’s election win and for the creation of the Jan. 6 committee, beat back a primary challenge.

Most Republican candidates have tried to prove their loyalty to Trump regardless of whether they had his support. Guest pinned a 2020 tweet at the top of his Twitter feed thanking Trump for his endorsement, which at a quick glance could be mistaken as current support.