The Nevada GOP is censuring a member of its own party for allegedly “put[ting] the reliability of our elections in Nevada in question.”
The state’s Republican Party approved a censure of Saturday of Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, by a vote of 126-112 for “the intense dishonor her failures brought upon the Nevada Republican Party,” according to multiple outlets.
Cegavske responded to the censure resolution Sunday morning, claiming that it was her critics who were undermining public confidence in Nevada’s elections.
“Regrettably, members of my own political party have decided to censure me simply because they are disappointed with the outcome of the 2020 election,” she said in a widely reported statement. “My job is to carry out the duties of my office as enacted by the Nevada Legislature, not carry water for the state GOP or put my thumb on the scale of democracy. Unfortunately, members of my own party continue to believe the 2020 general election was wrought with fraud – and that somehow I had a part in it — despite a complete lack of evidence to support that belief. Regardless of the censure vote today by the Nevada Republican Party Central Committee, I will continue in my efforts to oversee secure elections in Nevada and to restore confidence in our elections, confidence which has been destroyed by those falsely claiming the 2020 general election produced widespread fraud.”
MAINE GOP OFFICIALS FORM CAUCUS AFTER PARTY VOTED DOWN CENSURE OF SUSAN COLLINS
The party’s dissatisfaction with the secretary state emerged from an incident last month, when a crowd of pro-Trump demonstrators, including Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald and former congressional candidate Jim Marchant, physically delivered boxes filled with complaints of election fraud to Cegavske and demanded she investigate them.
“I’m tired of elected officials saying, ‘There was no voter fraud; no one’s giving us examples of voter fraud,'” McDonald said on March 4 as he stood next to boxes that he said contained more than 120,000 complaints. “Well, you want it, [so] I’m going to deliver it to you.”
The Nevada GOP’s censure mirrors a trend by several state-level parties displeased with the actions taken by members of their own party. Almost every member of Congress who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump was met with a censure resolution back home.
“It is truly a sad day for North Carolina Republicans,” Sen. Richard Burr, one of a handful of GOP senators who voted to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection, said when the North Carolina Republican Party unanimously voted to censure him in February. “My party’s leadership has chosen loyalty to one man over the core principles of the Republican Party and the founders of our great nation.”
Trump has vowed to remain an active figurehead of the party and support those mounting primary challenges to his political foes. The former president has endorsed nine Senate candidates and two contenders for the U.S. House so far, with others expected to roll in as the 2022 elections approach.
During a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Trump alluded to his efforts to support his allies’ political ambitions, singling out Rep. Liz Cheney, who voted in support of his impeachment, for condemnation.
“Hopefully, [Wyoming voters] will get rid of her with the next election. Get rid of them all,” Trump said. “[Democrats are] vicious, they’re smart, and they do one thing. I got to hand it to them: they always stick together. You don’t have ‘Mitt Romney’s in the group. They always stick together.”
Trump was impeached on the charge of inciting an insurrection for his actions leading up to and during the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot before he was acquitted in the Senate. The then-president was previously impeached on two Ukraine-related charges in 2019 but then acquitted in the Senate.
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Cegavske is term-limited and ineligible to run for reelection in 2022.
Representatives for the Nevada GOP and Cegavske did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner‘s requests for comment.
