Washington Post: “Nearly six months after Trump lost to Biden, rejection of the 2020 election results – dubbed the ‘Big Lie’ by many Democrats – has increasingly become an unofficial litmus test for acceptance in the Republican Party. In January, 147 GOP lawmakers – eight senators and 139 House members – voted in support of objections to the election results, and since then, Republicans from Congress to statehouses to local party organizations have fervently embraced the falsehood. In Washington, normally chatty senators scramble to skirt the question, and internal feuding over who is to blame for the Jan. 6 insurrection has riven the House Republican leadership, with tensions between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican, spilling into public view. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is facing a Trump-aligned primary challenger in her 2022 race, inspired by her call for Trump to resign after the Jan. 6 attack and her later vote to convict him over his role in inciting the insurrection.”

“Local officials, too, are facing censure and threats – in states from Iowa to Michigan to Missouri – for publicly accepting the election results. And in Arizona’s largest county, a hand recount of 2.1 million votes cast in November is underway by Republicans who dispute the results, in yet another effort to overturn the results of the November contest. The issue also could reverberate through the 2022 midterms and the 2024 election, with Trump already slamming Republicans who did not resist the election results. For Republicans, fealty to the falsehood could pull the party further to the right during the primaries, providing challenges during the general election when wooing more moderate voters is crucial. And for Democrats, the continued existence of the claim threatens to undermine Biden’s agenda. ‘It is not just about the Donald Trump persona,’ said Jennifer Palmieri, who served as White House communications director under President Barack Obama. ‘Trump is also a proxy in a culture war that’s about whose side are you on, and the people that buy into QAnon and other conspiracy theories are always looking for ways to discern whose side you’re really on.'”