Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) was heckled by a fringe Senate candidate at a GOP fundraiser in Illinois on Wednesday evening for firmly rejecting unfounded conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Trump.
During the fundraiser in Rosemont, Ill., Crenshaw was asked by another attendee if he thought the 2020 election was stolen.
“There’s certain cities with problems, but don’t kid yourself into believing that’s why we lost. It’s not. It’s not,” Crenshaw said.
Bobby Piton, a long-shot Republican candidate running for Senate in Illinois who has claimed without evidence that Trump will be reinstated to the presidency this year, then yelled repeatedly, “You’re wrong.”
“I’ll tell you openly. I’ll tell you, and I’m not wrong,” Crenshaw pushed back.
“Yes you are. I have plenty of proof. I have proof in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia,” Piton responded, citing the audit of ballots cast in Maricopa County, Ariz. “And guess what, it’s going to turn out and it’s gonna flip. You watch. You’re gonna see firsthand.”
“It won’t. It won’t,” Crenshaw said dismissively. “And you’ve gotta flip all five states.”
Crenshaw then sought to make clear that Republicans shouldn’t buy into conspiracy theories that Trump lost reelection because of widespread voter fraud.
“This is something you gotta accept. Is there a lot of voter fraud? Yeah, there probably is. Enough that Trump won? No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Five different states? Hundreds of thousands of votes? You’re kidding yourself,” Crenshaw said.
Unlike most House Republicans, Crenshaw voted to certify President Biden’s electoral victory on the night of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
But Crenshaw did sign onto a lawsuit by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that attempted to invalidate the election results in four swing states — Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin — that Biden won.
The Supreme Court ultimately rejected Paxton’s lawsuit and stated that “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections.”
Other lawsuits challenging Trump’s election loss have also been rejected by the courts, while state and local election officials also affirmed that the election results were valid.
Piton later called Crenshaw “sanctimonious,” “cocky” and “intellectually dishonest” in a Facebook post after the exchange. He added that “Liberty LOVING PATRIOTS in Texas need to find someone to jump in and PRIMARY CRENSHAW!”
“It is disgusting to hear denials from a sitting do-nothing and intellectually dishonest Congressman in our House of Representatives. Crenshaw has done nothing but shill for the democrats and refuse to even see or hear the evidence of fraud,” Piton wrote.