Did Biden legitimately win in 2020?

Litmus test for GOP candidates.

Was Trump cheated out of a landslide win?

A November, 2021 poll of Republican voters in Oregon reported that 75% viewed Trump favorably and 58% agree with Trump that the election was stolen from him. Over 60% said that GOP candidates should be "more like Trump."  Oregonlive

Trump insists the election was stolen, period. Trump calls a candidate or officeholders who openly disagree with him on this "RINO," a Republican in Name Only. Trump doesn't ignore apostasy. He attacks it and endorses a Trump-compliant primary opponent to replace the person "soft" on the issue. Since state governors are part of the process of certifying presidential elections, they cannot avoid the question of whether they would certify the win of a Democratic candidate who got the most votes. Arizona governor Doug Ducey and Georgia governor Brian Kemp are clear warnings. Trump is bitterly critical.

GOP candidates face the question: Is Trump right?

GOP candidates: Biden won

Drazan: campaign photo

Christine Drazan resigned her state House seat and Minority Leader position to focus on her campaign for governor. She said Joe Biden won the election and the election was not fraudulent. She answered the question "Did Joe Biden legitimately win the 2020 presidential election?" in the affirmative, saying "Biden won," It isn't what she wants to talk about, however. "I’m focused on the here and now, not an election from two years ago. I encourage the press to do the same."

Bud Pierce is a Salem oncologist and was the 2016 GOP nominee. He is running again. He also directly answered the question with a "Yes." He said, "We had a presidential election in 2020. Joe Biden was declared the winner. He won the election."

Jessica Gomez, a Medford high-tech entrepreneur, agrees that Biden won. Like Drazan, she wants to change the subject and move on. In a letter to me she said: 

Gomez at GOP event

If a football team lost a game by 16 points, most fans would say the winning team played better, or that their own losing team needed to regroup, retrain, and rethink a winning strategy. It's doubtful that even the most disappointed fans would claim the game was stolen by the winners.

So it's time to move on from the fact that Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden by 16 points in Oregon. It's time for disappointed Oregon Republicans to focus on the 2022 elections.

GOP Candidates: Trump maybe won. There was fraud.

Oregon Capital Chronicle

Stan Pulliam, the mayor of Sandy, Oregon, who is raising significant campaign funds, told a group of Republican women "We will truly never know who won the 2020 election" because the election was "absolutely fraudulent." He received applause for that comment. He urged GOP candidates to speak out against the election. "If your Republican candidate’s not gonna call a spade a spade, call it the fraudulent 2020 election in a primary when it’s easy, they’re never gonna do it as your next governor." 

He said he did not trust Oregon's vote system. "I will say that I have major concerns when you look at how particularly Republican candidates have performed here in Oregon since the implementation of the vote-by-mail system."

Brandon Merritt, a Bend-area businessman, is taking a position similar to Pulliam's. It is an "I don't know," combined with complaints that echo Trump. Merritt responded to my question, "Do you believe that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election?" by saying, he didn't know, and then: 

Certainly, some of the wilder theories like "servers in Germany", were obviously fake, but I think that the Supreme Court should have heard Texas' case alleging that voting procedures were improperly changed in several states.

I attempted a clarifying question, "Do you agree with former President Trump’s assertion that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen from him?" He did not answer in a way that pins him down, but responded in words that would likely satisfy GOP primary voters.

Merritt: Campaign photo

'Rigged' and 'stolen' are very loaded terms. It is not in dispute that Trump's enemies did everything in their power, legal and otherwise, to prevent him from carrying out his agenda or win re-election. We saw this repeatedly, including the Russian Collusion Hoax, the politicization of the COVID pandemic, and the collective shrug from Democrat Mayors and Governors as their cities were being burned down. We saw it again in the changes to election procedures, most of which were not made by legislatures (and therefore unconstitutional). We can presume that Democrats would not have made those changes if they didn't think they would be advantaged by them. Additionally, Trump was hobbled by a Republican establishment which never got over its resentment towards him and which refused to help him fight.

There are other candidates who have not yet responded to me or other media about their positions. I will add their responses as they become available. Their websites do not address the issue. That absence is the real message. GOP candidates understand the litmus test is a political loser in the general election.