Far-Right Candidates Secured a 71 Percent Win Rate in Recent Elections

Far-Right Figures Claim Victory After Midterms

Following Election Day last week, white nationalist Nick Fuentes urged his supporters on X to vote Democrat, racking up over 12 million views. Hours later, wired.com reported that Fuentes took credit for the Democratic sweep.

The Tech TL;DR:

• White nationalist Nick Fuentes urged his X followers to vote Democrat on Election Day, securing over 12 million views before claiming credit for the subsequent Democratic sweep.
• Researchers tracked 535 candidates linked to far-right Facebook groups in statewide races, recording 338 victories out of 476 called races by last Friday.
• Extremist groups are declaring the MAGA movement dead, arguing that the midterm results validate their criticisms and open new recruiting opportunities.

“We did it again,” Fuentes wrote on Telegram, calling the phenomenon “the Groyper Effect” in reference to his followers. During a livestream last week, Fuentes claimed the election results present an opportunity for his allies on the far right.

“Let the Democrats rule; see how that goes,” Fuentes said. “There will come a time when the far left will terrorize people, and they’re going to push all of them into the arms of the right.”

GOP Leadership Warning Issued

Fuentes questioned who would fight the far left, answering that only the far right can do so, which necessitates taking over the right wing now.

In another livestream last week, Fuentes issued a warning to GOP leadership, stating, “It’s our party now … You need to cooperate with us… Groypers are open for business. It has [to] be America First—and if it’s not, we’ll do it again for the enemy.”

A WIRED review of comments from white-supremacist, Christian-nationalist, and other far-right groups after the midterms revealed similar sentiments. These groups uniformly attacked Donald Trump for failing to prioritize white, Christian, American values while expressing belief that the shift to the left will spark a backlash driving voters toward far-right ideologies.

“Many prominent figures in racist, extremist movements have taken to declaring the MAGA movement dead since the midterm elections, claiming that the results validate their previous criticisms of the Trump administration and opens new opportunities for their movements to push disaffected voters toward their ideological beliefs,” Jared Holt, senior researcher at Open Measures, told WIRED.

Far-Right Candidates Won Most Statewide Races

While certain Republican extremist candidates faced rejection during the elections last week, many others secured wins. The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights tracked 535 candidates running in statewide races who belonged to at least one far-right Facebook group. Researchers found that of 476 races called by last Friday, 338 of those candidates won, marking a 71 percent win rate, with the vast majority occurring where GOP incumbents retained seats.

In Florida, 34-year-old citrus farmer Marshall Rawson, who attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, easily defeated his Democratic opponent in the state’s 10th District State House race.