Masters on scrubbing claims suggesting 2020 election wasn’t ‘free and fair’: ‘I still believe it, that’s for sure’

GOP Arizona Senate hopeful Blake Masters said Wednesday that he still believes a since-deleted statement from his campaign website that indicated that the 2020 presidential election was neither free or fair.

During an interview on Fox News, Masters was asked why he deleted a line from his campaign website that had said, “If we had had a free and fair election, President Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office today.”

“Well, I still believe it, that’s for sure,” Masters replied. “And like I said in my debate last week, I think if everyone followed the law, President Trump would be in the Oval Office.”

The Republican challenger to Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) suggested that Big Tech had censored information about President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, ahead of the election and allegedly at the pushing of the FBI, compromising the way people voted in 2020. 

Those claims are similar to ones he offered during last week’s debates, however, he did concede during the debate that Biden is “duly sworn and certified, he’s the legitimate president,” which came after some pressing.

The November midterms are less than a month out, and the Arizona Senate seat is considered one critical in determining which party controls the upper chamber next year. The seat has been rated as “lean Democrat” by the nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report, and recent polling shows the race is still close.

A CBS News-YouGov poll out last week showed Kelly leading Masters among likely voters polled 51 percent to 48 percent, falling within the margin of error and effectively tying the two candidates. 

The Hill has reached out to Masters’s campaign for further comment.