As a result of Donald Trump’s false allegations that the 2020 election that elected Joe Biden was stolen, a wave of candidates who deny the results of attempts by young Latino Democrats to put themselves on the front lines of perpetuating these lies.

Fontes, a Marine and former Maricopa County elections administrator, is running for the job that oversees elections in Arizona. His opponent is Republican state legislator Mark Finchem, a 2020 election denier and self-identified member of the far-right militia group Oath Keepers. Arizona does not have a lieutenant governor, so the secretary of state is next in line to succeed the governor, according to NBC News.

“My opponent poses a significant threat, a real and present danger to our democracy, and we’d rather fight this battle with ballots than bullets, and so that’s how we are going to defeat him, at the ballot box. He’s the last person you want to be the keeper of the seal of the state of Arizona”, Fontes told NBC.

In Nevada, Democrat Cisco Aguilar, a lawyer and businessman, is in a fierce race against Republican Jim Marchant (backed by a far-right coalition that supports a conspiracy theory, the “QAnon”) and who supports candidates who deny the 2020 election, convinced him to run for secretary of state.

“Election races for secretary of state, usually a low-profile office, have become the center ring in this country's struggle over how U.S. elections are carried out, as secretaries of state are usually the highest-level officials that ensure fair and accurate elections in their states”, according to NBC.

Also in Nevada, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat and only Latina member of the U.S. Senate, is in a fierce race against Republican Adam Laxalt, who said the 2020 election was “rigged”.

“The election denial narrative, accepted by a large share of Republicans, has gained momentum as the Latino population and its electorate have increased, coinciding with laws mandating voter identification after the record turnout of Latinos and other racial and ethnic minorities for former President Barack Obama”, NBC notes.

A recent tracking poll for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) found that nearly 2 in 5 Latinos (38%) believe it is true or almost true that there was cheating and voter fraud in 2020, and that Trump was the real winner of the election.

According to NBC, “There are several Latino Republican candidates who are election deniers, too, such as Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican running for election to the U.S. House to represent Florida’s 13th District. She told NBC's Paola Ramos in a June special series that she does not believe Joe Biden is the legitimate president”.

Francisco Pedraza, an associate director at Arizona State University's Center for Latinas/os and American Politics Research, told  NBC that Election denialism “is still overwhelmingly concentrated among non-Hispanic whites” and he is concerned about “the risk of election denialism translating into violence is going to, or could potentially center on, Latinos as the villains”.

“Election denials have already snowballed into increased voter restriction laws, and candidates are linking border security to election fraud by immigrants not in the country legally”, NBC said, according to a report in The New York Times. “Last year, Texas, where Hispanics are believed to now outnumber whites, passed an election law requiring its secretary of state to regularly review voter rolls and verify voters’ citizenship status”.