The Maryland GOP’s nominees for governor and lieutenant governor, Dan Cox and Gordana Schifanelli, are helping to prove that a far-right, QAnon-supporting, election-denying platform is viable in the Republican Party. 

Cox and Schifanelli won their GOP primary elections on July 19. Cox, a Maryland state delegate, became the second January 6 Trump rally participant and supporter of the right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory to win a gubernatorial primary after Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano snagged the Republican nomination in his state. Schifanelli, an attorney who founded a local right-wing Facebook group that was later banned under the platform’s policy against “dangerous individuals and organizations,” has also signaled support for the QAnon conspiracy theory. 

QAnon supporters, who believe former President Donald Trump had a plan to overthrow the so-called “deep state” and a “cabal” of Democrats running a pedophilia ring, have also grabbed several seats in state legislatures and Congress in recent years.

Prior to the election, Trump endorsed Cox and Schifanelli’s ticket over that of Kelly Schulz, a more moderate candidate with ties to the incumbent, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. Despite Cox clinching the nomination, Hogan has refused to support him. The Democratic Governors Association also paid for $1 million in ads attacking Cox as too conservative, in an apparent attempt to help boost Cox, who they see as an easier general election opponent than Schulz. 

Cox and Schifanelli have a history of conspiracy theories and bigotry

Cox has repeatedly shown his support for the debunked QAnon conspiracy theory. 

In October 2020, he tweeted a QAnon hashtag. Cox later defended the tweet, writing, “I support President Trump and General Flynn and that’s all my point was about.” Schifanelli has also tweeted hashtags associated with QAnon.

In April, Cox spoke at a conference hosted by antisemitic QAnon conspiracy theorists Allen and Francine Fosdick. The Fosdicks have promoted multiple QAnon-associated conspiracy theories, including the antisemitic lie that the Rothschild family was behind the California wildfires through the use of space lasers. They have also supported the long-debunked antisemitic screed The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. 

In addition to promoting QAnon, Cox has spread lies about the 2020 election, attended the pro-Trump rally that would become the January 6 Capitol insurrection, and even paid for buses for other Trump supporters to go to Washington, D.C. that day. While rioters stormed the Capitol, he tweeted that Pence was a “traitor.” Cox also falsely claimed that anti-fascists were responsible for the violence at the Capitol.

Since the insurrection, Cox has continued promoting misinformation about the 2020 election, including declaring on Facebook in December 2020 that Trump should seize voting machines in order to prove nonexistent fraud. In a July 2021 Facebook post, Cox wrote, “I was in Philadelphia with President Trump's team for three weeks during the 2020 election and witnessed PA election fraud.” (There is no evidence of widespread election fraud in 2020 anywhere in the U.S.) Cox has promised that if elected, he will lead a “forensic audit” into the 2020 election. For her part, Schifanelli has repeatedly promoted conspiracy theories about the election on Twitter.

Cox is also known for his extreme, far-right stances on public health and culture war issues. In 2020, Cox sued to end Hogan’s stay-at-home order and other COVID-19 prevention measures, and he has sponsored legislation that would severely restrict abortion rights, broaden gun access, and ban future COVID-19 safety guidelines. 

He has claimed that state leaders who support LGBTQ rights “want to indoctrinate your child into confusion of not knowing if they are a boy or a girl — and worse — they want to groom them for chemical castration … beginning in Pre-K.” In doing so, Cox pushed the same anti-LGBTQ talking points conservatives have been using to ban discussions of LGBTQ identity in schools and strip trans people of bodily autonomy. 

Additionally, Cox has bashed so-called “critical race theory,” a term conservatives have used inaccurately to label and demonize truthful discussions of race and history in school. His running mate has also railed against racial justice education. 

Schifanelli founded a right-wing Facebook group, “Kent Island Patriots,” and gained attention in 2020 when she bashed local Maryland educators for supporting Black Lives Matter and racial justice. According to The New York Times, “Schifanelli posted the teachers’ names and discussions, accusing them of supporting ‘political brainwashing of our children by using race,’” and she was later banned from Facebook. Appearing on Fox & Friends in April 2021, Schifanelli decried “woke culture” and told co-host Steve Doocy: “There is no systemic racism against anyone in our public schools, and we cannot make one up just because it is politically fashionable at the moment.” 

On Twitter, Schifanelli has repeatedly attacked “globalist” elites — deploying the far-right antisemitic dogwhistle in tweets spreading anti-vaccine talking points and sharing an image of George Soros and the head of the World Economic Forum as puppetmasters pulling the strings of world leaders.

She has repeatedly spread lies about the COVID-19 vaccines, including that the vaccine is dangerous. Additionally, she has referred to identifying as transgender a “perverted sexual practice.” She also appeared on One America News Network and claimed without evidence that CNN was required viewing for children in Maryland public schools.

Celebrating Cox’s primary win on July 19, Schifanelli tweeted that their victory “is Maryland Patriots speaking loud and clear: enough of mandates; enough of wokeism in schools, CRT indoctrination; transgenderism and deviated curriculum; enough of wasteful spending and high taxes: crime and sanctuary cities!” 

Despite their extremist history and beliefs, Cox and Schifanelli trounced their GOP primary opponents by roughly 16 points, providing yet another example of the Republican Party embracing conspiracy theorists, bigots, and election deniers.