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Research/Study
Here are the QAnon supporters running for Congress in 2022
The QAnon conspiracy theory was linked to the Capitol insurrection. Here are 73 former congressional candidates who embraced it during the 2022 election cycle -- including two who won.
Written by Alex Kaplan
Research contributions from Danil Cuffe & Olivia Little
Published
Updated
Update (last updated 11/29/22): This article has been repeatedly updated with more congressional candidates, primary results, and other details.
Update (4/1/22): Minnesota’s Danielle Stella has been removed from this list; she wrote in 2021 that she planned to run -- likely in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, where she unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2020 -- but did not proceed with a candidacy.
Multiple people who have expressed some level of support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, which got its start on far-right message boards, are running for Congress in 2022.
The QAnon conspiracy theory, which revolves around an anonymous account known as “Q,” started on far-right message board site 4chan, later moving to fellow far-right message board site 8chan, which has since relaunched as 8kun. (Beyond the QAnon conspiracy theory, 8chan/8kun has been linked to multiple instances of white supremacist terrorism, including the 2019 massacre in El Paso, Texas.) Some supporters of QAnon have been tied to violent incidents and participated in the January 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol, and multiple government agencies have issued internal warnings of domestic terrorism regarding supporters of the conspiracy theory.
Besides these congressional candidates, there are multiple gubernatorial candidates in the 2022 election cycle who have expressed some level of support for the conspiracy theory, and there are multiple candidates seeking offices that have control over state elections who have supported the conspiracy theory or appealed to its supporters.
Among these 73 candidates who have previously endorsed or given credence at some level to the conspiracy theory or promoted QAnon content:
- Fifteen were from Florida, nine were from California, six were from Texas, four each were from Illinois, Arizona, and New York, three were from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, two each were from Nevada, Maryland, Tennessee, Connecticut, Oregon, and Ohio, and there was one each from Rhode Island, Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas, Vermont, Iowa, Alaska, Washington, Georgia, and Colorado.
- Two of the candidates, Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert, were reelected to Congress.
- One of the candidates, Texas’ Mayra Flores, was elected to Congress in a special election, but lost her election for a full term. Another candidate, in Florida, unsuccessfully ran for a special congressional election held in January.
- Sixteen major party candidates secured a spot on the general election ballot: Texas’ Johnny Teague and Mayra Flores; Ohio’s J.R. Majewski; Oregon’s Jo Rae Perkins; California’s Mike Cargile, Omar Navarro, and Alison Hayden; New Jersey’s Billy Prempeh; Nevada’s Sam Peters; Tennessee’s Charlotte Bergmann; Florida’s Carla Spalding; Massachusetts’ Donnie Palmer; New York’s Tina Forte; Arkansas’ John White; Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene; and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert.
- Four independent candidates secured a spot on the general election ballot: Florida’s Christine Scott, Tennessee’s Matt Makrom, Vermont’s Mark Coester, and Virginia’s David Foster.
- Sixty-one were Republicans, one was a Democrat, one was a Libertarian, and 10 were independents.
- Forty-two previously ran for Congress in 2020. Three previously ran for a state legislative seat in 2020.
Below are the 2022 congressional candidates who previously endorsed or gave credence to the conspiracy theory or promoted QAnon content, organized by state and then by last name in alphabetical order.
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Alaska
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Sid Hill (lost primary)
Sid Hill was an independent candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Alaska. He was defeated in the nonpartisan blanket primary on August 16. He previously ran as a “pro-Trump” write-in for the U.S. Senate in the state in 2020. He tweeted about a since-deleted YouTube video regarding a “massive intel drop” from “Q clearance” on 4chan around the time when Q had been posting on the site.
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Arizona
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Josh Barnett (lost primary)
Josh Barnett was a Republican candidate who ran in Arizona’s new 1st Congressional District; he started the race in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District prior to the adoption of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission's final redistricting draft. He was defeated in the primary on August 2. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District in 2020. In July 2020, in response to an NBC News report about Twitter’s announcement that it would take action against the spread of QAnon content on the platform, Barnett tweeted, “Weird to be so paranoid about something that is not real, right?” On both Facebook and Instagram, he has shared posts with QAnon hashtags. Despite those posts, Barnett claimed in August 2020 that he believes QAnon is “nonsense” and “not even a real thing” and that one of his posts with QAnon hashtags was just “retweeting the article.”
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Jerone Davison (lost primary)
Jerone Davison was a Republican candidate who ran in Arizona’s 4th Congressional District. He was defeated in the primary on August 2. One of his campaign sites, which he has promoted on his social media, has had the QAnon slogan -- “where we go one, we go all,” or “WWG1WGA” -- in its metadata, listed next to “breadcrumb” (another QAnon term). And in one of his campaign launch videos, Davison said that he needed “bakers, meme lords, and content creators” to help with his campaign; the term “bakers” has been used to describe QAnon supporters who try to interpret posts from Q. Davison has also confirmed that a QAnon influencer is his campaign manager; that influencer has said that he was using the campaign to push “Q stuff.”
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Ron Watkins (lost primary)
Ron Watkins was a Republican candidate who ran in Arizona’s new 2nd Congressional District. He started the race in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, but it became the state’s 2nd Congressional District after the Arizona redistricting commission finalized the new congressional district lines. He was defeated in the primary on August 2. Watkins formerly served as administrator of 8chan/8kun (going by the username “CodeMonkeyZ”), and an HBO documentary, Q: Into the Storm, alleged (though not beyond a reasonable doubt) that Watkins had controlled the Q account for at least a period of time, with Watkins saying that his promotion of false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election “was basically three years of intelligence training, teaching normies how to do intelligence work. It’s basically what I was doing anonymously before, but never as Q.” A subsequent analysis from computer scientists also identified Watkins as likely controlling the Q account for at least a period of time.
8chan founder Fredrick Brennan has also claimed that while Ron was administrator, he and his father, Jim Watkins, agreed to a request from Q for “additional features and design changes be made to” the site. Brennan has also said that the two corresponded with Q directly. In 2018, when Q supposedly changed the tripcode used to verify their identity to others, Watkins personally confirmed that the poster was Q. Watkins has also falsely claimed that “there is no QANON,” which echoes a Q post urging supporters to deny that QAnon exists, and has praised Q as “great to open people’s minds to do open source intelligence and open source research” and said the style of his online posts were directly influenced by Q. He also told The New York Times about the Q posts, “There is probably more good stuff than bad,” and named as examples “fighting for the safety of the country, and for the safety of the children of the country.”
Additionally, as part of Watkins’ campaign to push false voter fraud claims, he teamed up with a QAnon influencer to post video which he falsely claimed showed wrongdoing by a Dominion Voting Systems employee. (The video caused people to send death threats to the employee.) He also helped spread a QAnon-connected hashtag urging Trump to overturn the election via martial law. He also attended a QAnon conference in Las Vegas organized by a QAnon influencer, and he has interviewed QAnon influencers on his online shows and amplified their content on social media.
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Daniel Wood (suspended campaign)
Daniel Wood was a Republican candidate who ran in Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District and has since suspended his campaign to instead run for the Arizona state Senate. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in the same district in 2020. Wood, in since-deleted tweets, had repeatedly mentioned the QAnon slogan and used the hashtag “#TheGreatAwakening.” On Facebook, Wood has written “I do follow QAnon at times” because its supporters “believe in bringing power back to the people.”
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Arkansas
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John White (lost general election)
John White was a Democratic candidate who ran in Arkansas’ 4th Congressional District. He advanced from the Democratic primary scheduled on May 24 by default, running unopposed, and was defeated in the general election. Following an October debate at which White said he was running for office to “save the children” — a term that was co-opted by QAnon supporters in 2020 — a reporter asked if he was “aware of the QAnon movement, and would you say you associate with it on any level?” White said, “Well, let’s say something honest, man, yes, I am. And yes, I take everybody’s opinions.” He explained, “Yeah, I take their advice, and then I research it,” and challenged reporters in the room to “ask questions, especially about the kids. … I’ll give you some rabbit holes, but our time’s up.”
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Video file
Citation From a video uploaded to YouTube on October 17, 2022
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California
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Jamie Byers (suspended campaign)
Jamie Byers was a Republican candidate who ran in California’s 4th Congressional District and has since suspended his campaign. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in the same district in 2020. In 2020, he tweeted the QAnon slogan at Trump.
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Mike Cargile (lost general election)
Mike Cargile was a Republican candidate who ran in California’s 35th Congressional District. He came in second in the nonpartisan blanket primary on June 7, which meant under California election law, he appeared on the ballot in November’s general election. He was subsequently defeated in the general election. Cargile unsuccessfully ran for Congress in the same district in 2020. Cargile’s since-suspended Twitter account included the QAnon slogan and “#OathKeeper,” likely a reference to a far-right armed militia group. He had also tweeted and retweeted the QAnon slogan, and he responded “absolutely” to a user's tweet that “now's the time to get On Board” with QAnon. Cargile later released a statement about QAnon, claiming he had the conspiracy theory’s slogan in his profile because “it is the perfect sentiment for all Americans to have toward one another” and added that “we’ll see” regarding “actual ‘Q’ intel.” He also claimed to Grid News that “the United States is being run by a satanic cabal of human traffickers and pedophile predators, working in conjunction other world leaders, to establish a one world order.”
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Ignacio Cruz (suspended campaign)
Ignacio Cruz was a Republican candidate who ran for Congress in California (he did not specify which congressional district) and has since suspended his campaign. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in California’s 19th Congressional District in 2020. Cruz has posted the QAnon slogan on his personal Facebook page and multiple times on his campaign Facebook page. He also ran a Facebook ad including the slogan. Cruz has also posted QAnon images.
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Paul Gutierrez (suspended campaign)
Paul Gutierrez was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in California and has since suspended his campaign. He has tweeted the QAnon slogan along with a video from a QAnon influencer promoting the conspiracy theory and a link to a video titled “Q Anon: Clinton House Fire Deliberate Act ‘To Flush Enemy Out.’”
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Alison Hayden (lost general election)
Alison Hayden was a Republican candidate who ran in California’s 14th Congressional District; she started the race in the 15th Congressional District prior to redistricting. She came in second in the nonpartisan blanket primary on June 7, which meant under California election law, she appeared on the ballot in November’s general election. She was subsequently defeated in the general election. Hayden unsuccessfully ran in the same district in 2020. On her campaign Twitter account, Hayden has repeatedly retweeted content explicitly promoting QAnon, along with repeatedly tweeting the QAnon-connected hashtag “#GreatAwakening.” She has also tweeted the QAnon hashtag and the spinoff hashtag for the QAnon slogan, “#WWG1WGAWORLDWIDE.” On what Ballotpedia lists as her personal Twitter account (which her campaign account has previously tagged), she has tweeted the QAnon slogan and the hashtag “#GreatAwakening.”
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Peter Liu (suspended campaign)
Peter Liu was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in California and has since suspended his campaign. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in California’s 15th Congressional District in 2020. On his since-suspended Twitter account, Liu had repeatedly tweeted the QAnon hashtag and QAnon slogan.
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Omar Navarro (lost general election)
Omar Navarro was a Republican candidate who ran in California’s 43rd Congressional District; he changed districts after previously running in California’s 22nd Congressional District. He came in second in the nonpartisan blanket primary on June 7, which meant under California election law, he appeared on the ballot in November’s general election. He was subsequently defeated in the general election. Navarro unsuccessfully ran for Congress in California’s 43rd Congressional District in 2020. Navarro has tweeted the QAnon slogan, and he later told Insider “that he believes in ‘some things’ that ‘Q’ says, including the human trafficking trope.” He also told Grid News that “my relationship with this movement is to expose the dark human trafficking agenda in Hollywood and D.C.” He has also pushed the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory.
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Buzz Patterson (suspended campaign)
Buzz Patterson was a Republican candidate who ran in California’s 7th Congressional District and has since suspended his campaign. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in the same district in 2020. In April 2020, Patterson tweeted “yep” in response to a user asking if he “support[s] the Q movement.” Patterson later told Axios “that he does not recall sending the tweet about the theory and does not ‘follow or endorse anything he/she/them say’” and has more recently tweeted, “Q doesn’t exist. Never has.”
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Cordie Williams (lost primary) Cordie Williams was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in California. He was defeated in the primary on June 7. While appearing on a QAnon show, he said the QAnon slogan. Williams has also posted the QAnon hashtag and QAnon slogan on Instagram.
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Video file
Citation From a stream of the MatrixxxGrooove Show uploaded on Rumble on July 24, 2021
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Update (11/2/21): This video was updated due to technical errors in the original stream.
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Colorado
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Lauren Boebert (reelected to Congress)
Lauren Boebert is an incumbent Republican member of Congress who ran for reelection in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. She won the primary on June 28 and was reelected in the general election. In 2020, Boebert appeared on the online show Steel Truth, hosted by QAnon supporter Ann Vandersteel, who asked Boebert if she knew about “the Q movement.” Boebert responded that she was “very familiar with it” and said that while she did not focus on it a lot, she hoped that QAnon “is real because it only means America is getting stronger and better.” She also said that everything she heard about QAnon “is only motivating and encouraging and bringing people together, stronger, and if this is real, then it can be really great for our country.” Boebert also appeared that year on Patriots' Soapbox, which had been a major QAnon YouTube channel prior to being removed from the platform. She also appeared to have a YouTube account that subscribed to multiple QAnon channels. Despite her activity, Boebert later claimed, “I don’t follow QAnon,” and she said that “QAnon is a lot of things to different people.”
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Connecticut
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John Flynn (did not advance to general election)
John Flynn was an independent candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut and will not appear on the general election ballot, according to Ballotpedia. He originally ran as a Republican. Flynn has tweeted, “Q said November 6th - 48 hours,” and called Trump “Q+,” which QAnon supporters sometimes refer to Trump as.
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Robert Hyde (disqualified from primary or suspended campaign)
Robert Hyde was a Republican who ran for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut and has since either been disqualified from the primary or suspended his campaign. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District in 2020. In November 2020, he wrote on Facebook that he had done “a search for ‘Barcelona’ in Q Drops.”
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Florida
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Darren Aquino (lost primary)
Darren Aquino was a Republican candidate who ran in Florida’s 26th Congressional District; he changed districts after starting the race in Florida’s 19th Congressional District and then running in Florida’s 25th Congressional District. He was defeated in the primary on August 23. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Florida’s 19th Congressional District in 2020. Aquino has tweeted the QAnon slogan. He has since claimed to CNN that someone else ran his Twitter account.
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Vic DeGrammont (suspended campaign)
Vic DeGrammont was a Republican candidate who ran in Florida’s 20th Congressional District and has since suspended his campaign. He also ran in a special election in that district but was disqualified from the primary. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in the same district in 2020. DeGrammont used to have the hashtag “#Q” in his Twitter profile, and he has also repeatedly tweeted “#Q” and repeatedly used the QAnon slogan.
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Carrie Lawlor (lost primary)
Carrie Lawlor was a Republican candidate who ran in Florida’s 22nd Congressional District; she changed districts after starting the race in Florida’s 21st Congressional District. She was defeated in the primary on August 23. She has tweeted the QAnon hashtag and repeatedly tweeted the QAnon slogan. Lawlor has also tweeted, “Q sent me,” a phrase that QAnon supporters have tweeted at accounts that Q linked to. She also is an administrator of a Telegram channel established by a QAnon influencer, where she has posted and promoted her campaign.
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Jake Philip Loubriel (disqualified from primary)
Jake Philip Loubriel was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Florida and was disqualified from the primary. An inactive Twitter account seemingly belonging to Loubriel has previously been critical of Q while framing Q and QAnon as legitimate and also repeatedly tweeting the QAnon hashtag and the QAnon slogan.
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Luis Miguel (suspended campaign)
Luis Miguel was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Florida and has since suspended his campaign to instead run for the Florida House of Representatives. He has tweeted the QAnon slogan and written, “If QAnon wasn’t problematic for the establishment, the social-media companies they control wouldn’t be banning it.” Miguel has since told a USA Today Network reporter that “he never reads the QAnon message board but stays abreast of its activities through secondary sources,” adding, “I would say many of the people who follow me have followed QAnon postings.”
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K.W. Miller (lost primary)
K.W. Miller was a Republican candidate who ran in Florida’s new 28th Congressional District. He was defeated in the primary on August 23. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Florida’s 18th Congressional District in 2020. Miller has repeatedly tweeted the QAnon hashtag, the QAnon slogan, and the QAnon-connected hashtag “#GreatAwakening” (along with a hashtag for the Pizzagate conspiracy theory). He has also posted the QAnon hashtag and QAnon slogan on Facebook and repeatedly posted “#GreatAwakening” on Instagram. He has also run multiple Facebook ads with “#GreatAwakening.”
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Brian Perras (lost primary)
Brian Perras was a Republican candidate who ran in Florida’s 12th Congressional District. He was defeated in the primary on August 23. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in California’s 29th Congressional District in 2020. On Gab, Perras has posted the QAnon slogan. He has also tweeted a video promoting QAnon and has tweeted multiple times that “the storm is coming,” a likely reference to former President Donald Trump’s statement about a “calm before the storm,” which is central to QAnon lore. He has also tweeted that the late John F. Kennedy Jr. should be Trump’s vice president, referencing a belief pushed by some QAnon supporters that Kennedy Jr. is secretly still alive. He has also written that Trump will “become the 19th President,” a reference to the QAnon March 4 conspiracy theory.
Additionally, Perras has repeatedly called Hollywood celebrities “baby blood drinkers,” an apparent reference to the adrenochrome conspiracy theory among QAnon supporters that Democratic elites harvest that drug from children via torture. Perras has also written that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is involved with a “child slavery ring,” a claim tied to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory which itself has become incorporated into QAnon. He’s also claimed Democrats will be sent to Guantanamo Bay for punishment or even execution, which is also a part of QAnon lore.
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Christine Quinn (lost primary)
Christine Quinn is a Republican candidate running in Florida’s 13th Congressional District; she changed districts after starting the race in Florida’s 14th Congressional District. She was defeated in the primary on August 23. She unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Florida’s 14th Congressional District in 2020. In October 2020, Quinn tweeted the QAnon slogan and an image of the letter Q. Quinn has since told a USA Today Network reporter that the tweet was “from our social media team” and “was tweeted without her approval or knowledge of what the hashtags meant,” adding, “I've never posted anything by QAnon. I don't even know who's behind it. ... I want to make it clear that I am not associated with QAnon.”
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Anthony Sabatini (lost primary)
Anthony Sabatini is an incumbent member of the Florida House of Representatives and was a Republican candidate who ran in Florida’s 7th Congressional District; he started the race in Florida’s 11th Congressional District and changed districts after seeing the projected redistricting maps in Florida. He was defeated in the primary on August 23. In May 2020, he tweeted a link to a site that previously collected Q posts.
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Christine Scott (lost general election)
Christine Scott was an independent candidate who ran in Florida’s 23rd Congressional District; she changed districts after previously running in Florida’s 22nd Congressional District. She qualified for the general election ballot, and was defeated in the general election. She unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Republican in Florida’s 22nd Congressional District in 2020. The homepage of her campaign website in 2020 had featured the QAnon slogan. And a Gab account that apparently belongs to her posted in April that Q had “exposed the corruption and now we were seeing it play out.” The post also stated that she had met former national security adviser Michael Flynn and told him, “Thank you for being Q.” The post also included the QAnon slogan. Scott has since told Grid News that “Q is right.”
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Reba Sherrill (suspended campaign)
Reba Sherrill was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Florida and has apparently since suspended her campaign. She unsuccessfully ran for Florida’s 21st Congressional District in 2020. In a YouTube video in early 2020, a QAnon supporter interviewed Sherrill about attending a Florida QAnon “Great Awakening” rally, during which she said, “I've been following Q since the beginning.” She has also repeatedly tweeted the QAnon slogan and the QAnon hashtag. On her campaign site, her platform seems to reference the adrenochrome conspiracy theory -- a belief among QAnon supporters that Democratic elites harvest that drug from children under torture -- by claiming in a section about human trafficking, “They ‘farm’ for many reasons,” and mentioning “child sacrifice” and “organ harvesting.”
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Video file
Citation From a video uploaded to YouTube on February 26, 2020
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Carla Spalding (lost general election)
Carla Spalding was a Republican candidate who ran in Florida’s 25th Congressional District; she changed districts after starting the race in Florida’s 23rd Congressional District. She won the primary on August 23 and was defeated in the general election. She unsuccessfully ran for Congress in the same district in 2020. Spalding tweeted the QAnon slogan in 2018.
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Lavern Spicer (lost primary)
Lavern Spicer was a Republican candidate who ran in Florida’s 24th Congressional District. She was defeated in the primary on August 23. She unsuccessfully ran for Congress in the same district in 2020. On Facebook, Spicer has more than once posted a link to a YouTube video titled “Fall of Cabal,” which The New York Times noted is “core QAnon content” that “many QAnon believers have credited with spurring their interest” in the conspiracy theory.
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Darlene Swaffar (lost primary)
Darlene Swaffar was a Republican candidate who ran in Florida’s 23rd Congressional District; she changed districts after starting the race in Florida’s 22nd Congressional District. She was defeated in the primary on August 23. She unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Florida’s 22nd Congressional District same district in 2020. Swaffar has repeatedly tweeted the QAnon slogan and has posted a video of herself taking an oath supporting QAnon. On her personal Facebook page -- the intro section of which also included the QAnon slogan -- Swaffar had posted multiple QAnon memes. In April 2019, Swaffar wrote on a Facebook page called “QAnon Great Awakening” that the page’s posts about QAnon “inspired me to explore my run for Congress in 2020.” Swaffar has since falsely claimed to CNN that “I don’t know anything about” QAnon.
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Georgia
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Marjorie Taylor Greene (reelected to Congress)
Marjorie Taylor Greene is an incumbent Republican member of Congress who ran for reelection in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. She won the primary on May 24 and was reelected in the general election. Greene has posted the QAnon slogan on Facebook and on Twitter, the latter in response to a tweet defending the legitimacy of Q, writing, “Trust the plan” (another catchphrase used by QAnon supporters). She also has tweeted the QAnon-connected hashtag "#GreatAwakening" to far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Greene has also appeared in a video where she discussed following QAnon, calling Q a “patriot” and “worth listening to,” and she wrote favorably about the conspiracy theory on a now-defunct website. In 2018, she posted on Facebook about an “awesome post by Q” and in a video echoed another Q post about a conspiracy theory that former President Barack Obama’s administration had MS-13 gang members kill Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Greene had also “posted a series of tweets defending QAnon, including one” -- now deleted -- “encouraging her followers to message her with questions so she can ‘walk you through the whole thing.’” Greene has also pushed the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.
In August 2020, Greene attempted to distance herself from QAnon, dubiously claiming to Fox News that she chose “another path” due to “misinformation” from Q about the 2018 midterm elections. In Congress, Greene said that after “seeing things in the news that didn't make sense to me,” she “stumbled across” QAnon at the end of 2017 and “was allowed to believe things that weren't true.”
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Illinois
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Jeffrey English (disqualified from primary)
Jeffrey English was a Republican candidate who ran in Illinois’ 14th Congressional District and was disqualified from the primary. In a Telegram channel established by a QAnon influencer, he has repeatedly posted about Q, writing about “things we learned from Q” and saying he “might wear my 2018 version Q shirt” to a then-upcoming event.
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Bobby Piton (lost primary)
Bobby Piton was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Illinois. He was defeated in the primary on June 28. Piton -- who has been involved with an audit of ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona, for the 2020 presidential election -- has posted multiple Q drops on Facebook, along with posting an image featuring the QAnon slogan and a meme referencing a belief pushed by some QAnon supporters that John F. Kennedy Jr. is secretly still alive despite dying in a plane crash. He has also written, “You are the lucky number 1... 7 on the Truth is Right!!! Q...uestion for you .... do you know some letter is???” — likely a reference to Q, which is the 17th letter of the alphabet. He has also appeared on QAnon show RedPill78, whose host has admitted to participating in part of the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. According to The Daily Beast, Piton has claimed that “he didn’t know much about QAnon” and has associated with Ron Watkins, previously the administrator of 8kun. Piton also wrote on Gab that QAnon “makes for entertaining reading, but it’s no more accurate than the corrupt MSM.”
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Jimmy Tillman (lost primary)
Jimmy Tillman was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Illinois. He was defeated in the primary on June 28. Tillman unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Illinois’ 1st Congressional District in 2020. In a video that was uploaded as part of a Facebook ad from another candidate in 2020, Tillman led a crowd in a cheer for the QAnon slogan, including mentioning “all my Anons,” likely a reference to QAnon supporters or to users of the chan message board sites where Q has been based.
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Video file
Citation From a Facebook ad uploaded on July 27, 2020
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Iowa
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Andrew Foster (suspended campaign)
Andrew Foster was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Iowa and who has since suspended his campaign. His campaign site featured the QAnon slogan and mentioned “Devolution,” a conspiracy theory about Trump from a QAnon influencer that has spread in the QAnon community. Foster has also promoted a major QAnon Telegram channel, calling it the “*17* band,” a reference to Q being the 17th letter of the alphabet.
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Maryland
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Reba Hawkins (lost primary)
Reba Hawkins was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Maryland. She was defeated in the primary on July 19. She unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District in 2020. Hawkins has tweeted more than once the QAnon hashtag and a misspelled version of the QAnon slogan, along with other QAnon hashtags like “#QArmy” and “#QIsReal.”
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Jon McGreevey (lost primary)
Jon McGreevey was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Maryland. He was defeated in the primary on July 19. While McGreevey has tweeted that he “never followed Q,” he has written that “I follow others who decipher” Q posts, and he has also inquired about or referenced specific Q posts. Additionally, he has claimed that “if Q stands for anything it is getting the truth out there” and that the “DS [deep state]” had tried to “discredit” Q. McGreevey has also invoked the adrenochrome part of the conspiracy theory.
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Massachusetts
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Donnie Palmer (lost general election)
Donnie Palmer was a Republican candidate who ran in Massachusetts’ 7th Congressional District. He won the primary on September 6 by default, running unopposed, and was defeated in the general election. Palmer has tweeted a variation of the QAnon slogan, and another account, which also appears to be his, has tweeted the QAnon slogan as well.
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Nevada
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Sam Peters (lost general election)
Sam Peters was a Republican candidate who ran in Nevada’s 4th Congressional District. He won the primary on June 14 and was defeated in the general election. Peters unsuccessfully ran for Congress in the same district in 2020. He has tweeted the QAnon hashtag “#QArmy.”
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Mindy Robinson (suspended campaign)
Mindy Robinson was an independent candidate (under the “Patriot Party”) who ran in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District and has since suspended her campaign to instead run for the Nevada state Assembly. She unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Republican in the same district in 2020. She has posted the QAnon slogan, both misspelled and spelled correctly, on Facebook and Twitter. Newsweek has since interviewed Robinson and wrote that she “said she is a QAnon supporter in the way she hopes to stop child trafficking and protect them from pedophiles” and “said she has no reason to disavow her support of QAnon as wanting to protect children should not be considered a dangerous thing.”
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New Hampshire
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Andy Martin (lost primary)
Andy Martin was a Republican who ran for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire. He was defeated in the Republican primary on September 13. Martin unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire in 2020. In a 2020 press release claiming he was “not a supporter of QAnon,” Martin called QAnon a “rapidly organizing movement that could form the initial citizens’ resistance to the Democrats if President Trump is defeated for reelection” and a “coherent belief system” for which there was “a factual basis.” He also announced in another press release that he would “take the Digital Soldier Oath,” referring to an oath supporting QAnon.
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New Jersey
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Nicholas Ferrara (lost primary)
Nicholas Ferrara was a Republican candidate who ran in New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District. He was defeated in the primary on June 7. He has written that “beyond a shadow of a doubt there is [a]bsolute truth in the Q drops,” and appears to be a member of a Gab group called “#QAnons Supporters.” Ferrara has also told CNN that he has “seen the evidence” that QAnon is legitimate.
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Tricia Flanagan (disqualified from primary)
Tricia Flanagan was a Republican candidate who ran in New Jersey’s 4th Congressional District and was disqualified from the primary; she had changed districts after starting the race in New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District. She unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey in 2020. In April 2020, she tweeted “ThanQ” in response to a QAnon account promoting her candidacy alongside the conspiracy theory.
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Billy Prempeh (lost general election)
Billy Prempeh was a Republican candidate who ran in New Jersey’s 9th Congressional District. He won the primary on June 7 by default, running unopposed, and was defeated in the general election. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in the same district in 2020. On his campaign Facebook page, Prempeh had posted a photo of himself next to a Q flag, writing out the QAnon slogan alongside it. He has also tweeted the QAnon slogan and mentioned in a YouTube interview that Q and “the Great Awakening” are “stuff that we’ve got going on right now.” Prempeh has since falsely told Grid News, “I don’t have a relationship with QAnon,” and that “I don’t even know what the fuck it is.”
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New York
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Joel Anabilah-Azumah (lost general election)
Joel Anabilah-Azumah was an independent write-in candidate who ran in New York’s 9th Congressional District; he changed races after previously running for the U.S. Senate in New York. (Anabilah-Azumah has switched between running as a Republican and as an independent during his campaign.) He was defeated in the general election. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a member of the Serve America Movement Party in New York’s 9th Congressional District in 2020. In a Facebook video, he falsely claimed that “there is no such thing as the QAnon movement” and that instead “there is such a thing as the Q team, and they are allegedly military intelligence.” (The false claim, which he has also tweeted, echoes a Q post urging supporters to deny that QAnon exists.) He also added that “there is such a thing as the anons” who “do research,” and claimed that the “intelligence gathering between the Q team and the anons … has created an environment where information that was previously hidden by the intelligence agencies became public in a fashion that they could not control.” He also said that “Q was helping us find out certain things we didn’t already know.” Anabilah-Azumah has also tweeted to someone that Q is “an information exchange much like we do on your site or many different transit forums” and has tweeted that Q was “being attacked ... because a lot of interesting info flows through the place.”
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Video file
Citation From a February 3, 2021, Facebook video
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Tina Forte (lost general election)
Tina Forte was a Republican candidate who ran in New York’s 14th Congressional District. She won the primary on August 23 and was defeated in the general election. As noted by Snopes, she has repeatedly posted a misspelled version of the QAnon slogan on Facebook, including while posting a photo of herself wearing a hat with the slogan, which she told a user referred to “the great awakening ... the deep state.” She also invoked the #savethechildren campaign on social media when it was being co-opted by QAnon supporters. In March, Forte tweeted that she “was never a Q believer and never will be.”
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Mark Szuszkiewicz (disqualified from primary or suspended campaign)
Mark Szuszkiewicz was a Republican who ran for the U.S. Senate in New York and has since either been disqualified from the primary or suspended his campaign. He unsuccessfully ran for the New York State Assembly in 2020. Szuszkiewicz has repeatedly posted the QAnon slogan and other QAnon hashtags on Instagram, including hashtags pushing the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. He had also repeatedly tweeted QAnon hashtags.
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Antoine Tucker (suspended campaign)
Antoine Tucker was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in New York and has since suspended his campaign. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in New York’s 14th Congressional District in 2020. Tucker (who goes by “Tony Montaga” or “Montaga” on his social media accounts) has tweeted, “I am a Q Supporter,” and he has posted on Facebook and Instagram an image of a Q, writing alongside the QAnon slogan, “What makes humans different from other Animals? We laugh, cry & we ASK QUESTIONS” and “#conspiracyfactsnottheories.” And on both platforms he has written that “Q” and QAnon supporters “want to investigate, seek the truth and remove those that are elected and committing crimes out of DC.”
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North Carolina
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Steve Von Loor (suspended campaign)
Steve Von Loor was a Republican candidate who ran in North Carolina’s 4th Congressional District and has since suspended his campaign. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in the same district in 2020. On his since-suspended Twitter account, Von Loor had repeatedly tweeted the QAnon hashtag and QAnon slogan.
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Ohio
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J.R. Majewski (lost general election)
J.R. Majewski was a Republican candidate who ran in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District. He won the primary on May 3 and was defeated in the general election. Majewski has said, “I believe in everything that’s been put out from Q,” and claimed QAnon is “very mind opening. And it broadened my horizons substantially, just getting involved in the movement, getting involved with what everybody is doing and just seeing, you know, how deep it goes.” He has also posted QAnon hashtags on Instagram and appeared on Fox News while wearing a QAnon shirt, and has repeatedly tweeted the QAnon slogan (Majewski has worn other QAnon shirts in interviews). Majewski has also associated with and appeared multiple times on QAnon show RedPill78, including when he and host Zak Paine discussed participating together in part of the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Despite all this, Majewski has denied supporting QAnon, falsely telling The Blade, “I’ve never read any QAnon drop — what they call the ‘Q drop,’ what they post on the website.” Though he added, “You’ll see me on the podcast with a guy that believes in QAnon,” referring to Paine.
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Video file
Citation From the February 6, 2021, edition of Earcandy
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Mark Pukita (lost primary)
Mark Pukita was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Ohio. He was defeated in the primary on May 3. He has more than once tweeted the QAnon slogan and criticized the “MSM, Democrats & Dem Operatives” for “putting a full-court-press on disparaging & quashing the QAnon movement.” This post included an image with text saying, “You’re over the target,” a phrase often used among QAnon supporters. Pukita has also previously appeared on QAnon show RedPill78. Pukita has since told Newsweek that he denounces the conspiracy theory, saying QAnon is “a fictitious construct that was made public and got out of hand” and that “Q is a mental construct for someone hoping there are good people in our intelligence community.”
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Oregon
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Mark Cavener (lost primary)
Mark Cavener was a Republican candidate who ran in Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District. He was defeated in the primary on May 17. He unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in Arizona in 2020. Cavener’s 2020 U.S. Senate campaign site featured the QAnon slogan. He has also appeared on the QAnon show RedPill78 — using a filter to make himself look like former President Donald Trump — to promote his campaign. The show’s host said Cavener was “a longtime viewer of the show.”
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Jo Rae Perkins (lost general election)
Jo Rae Perkins was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Oregon. She won the primary on May 17 and was defeated in the general election. Perkins unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in Oregon in 2020. She has repeatedly tweeted in support of QAnon and posted the QAnon slogan on Twitter. Perkins has also said she follows the “Q team,” pushed a “#QProof” (supposed evidence that Q posts are accurate), posted links on Facebook to multiple QAnon YouTube videos, and linked to a site that collects Q posts. She also demanded that reporters ask then-President Donald Trump “the #Q,” referring to a belief among the conspiracy theory’s supporters that Trump would confirm Q was real if asked. Additionally, Perkins has posted a video of herself taking an oath supporting QAnon.
In a January 2020 interview that she livestreamed and which featured a “WWG1WGA” sticker in the background, Perkins expanded upon her belief in QAnon, comparing the Q posts to secret codes used during World War II and saying there is a “very strong probability/possibility that ‘Q’ is a real group of people, military intelligence, working with President Trump.” Later in the interview, she compared believing in Q to believing in Jesus Christ and claimed that “‘Q’ is most likely military intelligence ... and they've been out there watching what's been going on with our country for decades and they are partnered with President Trump to stop the corruption and to save our republic.” Perkins also said her QAnon support is part of her campaign strategy and claimed that “there's a lot more people that are running for political office that follow Q than are admitting to it.”
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Video file
Citation From a January 3, 2020, livestream on Jo Rae Perkins' Facebook page
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Pennsylvania
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Caroline Avery (lost general election)
Caroline Avery was a Libertarian candidate who ran in Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District as a write-in candidate. She was defeated in the general election. In response to a comment on a Facebook post she wrote defending QAnon (calling it “cue”), Avery wrote, “Cue has some very interesting and factual beliefs. I am not a cue hater.” On her Truth Social account, Avery has also amplified a Q post.
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Vincent Fusca (suspended campaign)
Vincent Fusca was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania and has since suspended his campaign. A segment of QAnon supporters believes he is the late John F. Kennedy Jr. in disguise -- a belief he seems to have played up himself. Fusca has said the QAnon slogan more than once, including while speaking at a QAnon conference in Las Vegas.
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Video file
Citation From the "Patriot Double Down" QAnon conference in Las Vegas on October 25, 2021
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Bobby Jeffries (disqualified from primary or suspended campaign)
Bobby Jeffries was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania and has since either been disqualified from the primary or suspended his campaign. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District and for a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2020 -- dropping out of both races before Election Day. In since-deleted tweets, Jeffries had repeatedly tweeted the QAnon slogan and wrote, “#QAnon for the win!”
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Rhode Island
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Robert Lancia (suspended campaign)
Robert Lancia was a Republican candidate and a former member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives who ran in Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District and has since suspended his campaign. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in the same district in 2020. Lancia has retweeted content explicitly promoting QAnon, though in August 2020 he denied to The Public’s Radio in Rhode Island that he supports the conspiracy theory. Lancia told the outlet that “someone else on his campaign handles his Twitter” and said that his account retweeted QAnon content because “probably it was attached to something else – maybe something to do with the president, MAGA, something like that.”
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South Carolina
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Keith Blandford (suspended campaign)
Keith Blandford was a Republican candidate who ran in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District and has since suspended his campaign to instead run for South Carolina secretary of state. He has posted the QAnon slogan.
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Tennessee
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Charlotte Bergmann (lost general election)
Charlotte Bergmann was a Republican candidate who ran in Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District. She won the primary on August 4 and was defeated in the general election. She unsuccessfully ran for Congress in the same district in 2020. In late October 2018, when packages containing pipe bombs were mailed out to several prominent Democrats and media figures around the country, she posted on Facebook, “Q warned that there would be a self-inflicted October surprise. I didn't believe it until now.” She wrote in comments, “Q said the false-flag would be blamed on a Republican.” On Twitter, she has also posted the QAnon slogan and a phrase used by QAnon supporters, “We are the news now.”
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Matt Makrom (lost general election)
Matt Makrom was an independent candidate who ran in Tennessee’s 1st Congressional District. (He had previously suspended his campaign.) He qualified for the general election ballot and was defeated in the general election. Makrom’s Gab profile features the QAnon slogan, which he has also posted more than once.
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Texas
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Jake Armstrong (disqualified from general election or suspended campaign)
Jake Armstrong was an independent candidate who ran in Texas’ 17th Congressional District and has since either been disqualified from the general election or suspended his campaign. In a Telegram channel established by a QAnon influencer, Armstrong has posted the QAnon slogan more than once -- including when he called for “the bad ones” to be “executed” -- and also wrote, “Enjoy the show,” another QAnon phrase. Armstrong also wrote on Telegram that he would “sling bullets” if he and others failed to supposedly save the country, and he posted photos of himself at the insurrection.
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Ruben Landon Dante (lost primary)
Ruben Landon Dante was a Republican candidate who ran in Texas’ 14th Congressional District. He was defeated in the primary on March 1. On his YouTube channel, he has posted a video titled “Q- Eradicating Pedophilia, Healing & Finding Forgiveness.” On Facebook, he has paid for an ad featuring the QAnon-related hashtag “TheGreatAwakening” and posted a link to a YouTube video titled “Fall of Cabal,” calling it a “must watch.” According to The New York Times, that video is “core QAnon content” that “many QAnon believers have credited with spurring their interest” in the conspiracy theory. Dante also wrote a blog on his campaign site titled “Who is ‘The Deep State’” about “how The Government Elite are Devil Worshippers.” He also tweeted about it, writing, “Here is some Pastel Q” -- a reference to the spread of the conspiracy theory among alternative lifestyle influencers and related groups known as “Pastel QAnon.” Additionally, he has criticized those who, he claims, have “censored Q.”
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Mayra Flores (elected to Congress in special election, lost general election for full term)
Mayra Flores was a Republican candidate who ran in Texas’ 34th Congressional District for the general election in November. On June 14, she won a special election in the district for the remaining tenure of former Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela, who resigned from his seat in March. Flores had won the primary for the November general election on March 1, and was defeated in the general election for a full term. She has repeatedly posted the QAnon hashtag and “#Q” on Twitter and on Facebook, including in a Facebook ad. On Instagram, she has also repeatedly posted the QAnon slogan. Despite her posts, Flores told the San Antonio Express-News regarding QAnon, “I’ve always been against any of that. I’ve never been supportive of it,” and she falsely told Fox News that she posted QAnon hashtags to show she was “actually against it.”
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Jason Nelson (lost primary)
Jason Nelson was a Republican candidate who ran in Texas’ 17th Congressional District. He was defeated in the primary on March 1. While appearing on a QAnon-supporting show, Nelson defended the conspiracy theory, saying, “Did it highlight child trafficking? Whatever you want to say about it, did it highlight children -- child trafficking? Because that’s what I care about.” He also praised it for “highlight[ing] that we have a corrupt government,” and said that “it’s been right on everything. Somebody really smart must be -- have pushed that from the beginning.” He added that it was “probably a group of people that did it,” and that “it was great.” He called subsequent questions from the Daily Dot “about his nickname, previous Twitter handles, observations at the Capitol riot, whether he’s a QAnon follower, or if he believes the 2020 election was stolen,” “‘idiotic,’ ‘libelous,’ and ‘misinformation.’”
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Video file
Citation From the February 7, 2022, edition of the MatrixxxGrooove Show
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Johnny Teague (lost general election)
Johnny Teague was a Republican candidate who ran in Texas’ 7th Congressional District; he changed districts after starting the race in Texas’ 9th Congressional District. He came in first in the primary on March 1, but since he earned less than 50% of the vote he headed to a primary runoff on May 24, which he won. He was subsequently defeated in the general election. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Texas’ 9th Congressional District in 2020. Teague, on his since-deleted campaign account, had retweeted content explicitly promoting QAnon, including retweeting a video of QAnon supporters taking an oath supporting the conspiracy theory. He also retweeted a false conspiracy theory pushed by some QAnon supporters that John F. Kennedy Jr. is secretly still alive even though he died in a plane crash. Teague has since claimed to Grid News that “QAnon material shared by his campaign’s Twitter account was posted by a campaign manager and that he ‘had her take it down,’” though he added that “I am sure QAnon are good American loving citizens.”
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Samuel Williams (disqualified from general election or suspended campaign)
Samuel Williams was an independent candidate who ran in Texas’ 16th Congressional District and has since either been disqualified from the general election or suspended his campaign. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Republican in the same district in 2020. Williams has tweeted the QAnon hashtag and repeatedly tweeted the QAnon slogan. In early 2020, he also ran a Facebook ad promoting an appearance on Patriots' Soapbox, where he appealed for financial support for his campaign. And yet, Texas Monthly reported in July 2020 that Williams denied supporting the conspiracy theory, claiming he thought it “was just a bunch of crap” that “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” and said that he used QAnon hashtags “to gain followers” on social media.
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Vermont
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Mark Coester (lost general election)
Mark Coester was an independent candidate, previously affiliated with the American Independent Party, who ran for the U.S. Senate in Vermont. He qualified for the general election ballot and was defeated in the general election. On Gab, he has posted an image featuring a Q post while tagging Jim Watkins, a QAnon supporter and the owner of 8kun. Coester has also criticized “Q Deniers” and appears to be a member of a Gab group called “QAnon Patriots.” In an online stream with Watkins and another QAnon supporter, Coester said that the “main objective” with Q was “do your own research and use discernment,” adding, “I think that objective was accomplished.” He also said “there is no QAnon,” which echoes a Q post urging supporters to deny that QAnon exists.
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Virginia
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David Foster (lost general election)
David Foster was an independent candidate who ran in Virginia’s 1st Congressional District; he changed districts after previously running in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District. He qualified for the general election ballot and was defeated in the general election. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District in 2020. Foster has tweeted a variation of the QAnon slogan and has tweeted, “TRAITORS PEDOPHILES TO THE GALLOS...ANY QANON QUESTIONS????”
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Washington
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Leon Lawson (lost primary)
Leon Lawson was a Republican candidate who ran for the U.S. Senate in Washington. He was defeated in the nonpartisan blanket primary on August 2. Lawson has repeatedly posted the QAnon slogan, including in a Facebook ad and on a “Kekistan” flag. Lawson has also invoked the QAnon slogan in campaign videos.
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Correction (6/3/21): This piece originally said 15 of the known candidates at the time had also run for Congress in 2020. The actual number was 14.
Correction (7/25/22): This piece originally stated Samuel Williams was a Republican candidate who had suspended his campaign. But according to Ballotpedia and his filing with the Federal Election Commission, Williams is still running and is listed as an independent candidate.
Correction (11/10/22): This piece originally stated Jake Armstrong had qualified for the general election ballot. He was actually either disqualified from the general election ballot or had suspended his campaign.