Under-the-radar secretary of state races become major focus in battleground states

While secretary of state races are typically down ballot and go unnoticed, the competitions have increasingly come under the spotlight since the 2020 presidential election, as the role of the office includes overseeing elections.

During the 2022 midterm elections, secretary of state races in battleground states have become particularly high-profile, such as in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, which flipped blue in the 2020 presidential election amidst various irregularities.

The incumbent secretaries of states in those races held office during the 2020 presidential election, and while one of them is currently running in their state's gubernatorial race, the rest are seeking reelection.

In Arizona, GOP nominee and state Rep. Mark Finchem is running against Democratic nominee Adrian Fontes, who was the Maricopa County recorder from 2017 to 2021. Since the state has no lieutenant governor position, the secretary of state in Arizona also serves as acting governor when the governor is out of state and is first in the gubernatorial line of succession.

Finchem was endorsed by former President Donald Trump and filed a lawsuit with GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake in U.S. District Court regarding the security of vote-counting machines. While the case was dismissed on the basis of standing, Finchem and Lake have appealed it to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Fontes, however, has claimed that the 2020 presidential election was secure and referred to audits that were conducted both internally and by outside experts.

While Finchem wants voting to only occur in-person, on Election Day, with limited reasons for absentee voting and ballots hand-counted, Fontes seeks to expand early voting, including nighttime and weekend hours, and continue to use machines for counting ballots.

Late October polls showed Finchem and Fontes within six or seven points of each other, with the former at 40% in one poll and 42% in another, and Fontes at 47% in the first poll and 48% in the other.

In Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) is facing off against state Rep. Bee Nguyen (D), who replaced gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams in the state House.

Raffensperger has pushed back against Trump's claims of 2020 being a stolen election but has also supported the election integrity law that was passed last year amid Democrats' claims of voter suppression. He also audited the state's voter rolls, finding that potentially more than 1,600 non-citizens attempted to register to vote. 

Nguyen has claimed that state Republicans have tried to suppress the votes of "Black and brown Georgians, working people, people with disabilities, young voters, and those who disagree with them."

Nguyen's campaign has raised $3.78 million, while Raffensperger has raised $3 million, including $850,000 in loans to himself.

In a July poll by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Raffensperger was up 46% to Nguyen's 32%. But according to an early October poll by SurveyUSA, Raffensperger's lead dropped to 39%, compared to Nguyen's 36%.

In Michigan, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) is in a race against GOP nominee Kristina Karamo.

Benson has fought the Republican National Committee and the Michigan GOP in court over her guidance to poll workers prior to the 2022 midterm election. Last week, the state Supreme Court ruled to maintain Benson's guidance because of the closeness to Election Day, which was a reversal of a lower court's ruling that had invalidated provisions of the guidance.

Karamo, who was endorsed by Trump, sued the Detroit city clerk and the city's board of election inspectors on Oct. 26 to reject all absentee ballots cast in Detroit. The lawsuit was dismissed on Monday by Wayne County Chief Circuit Judge Timothy Kenny, who said that Karamo's claim that the city clerk's procedures for the midterm election violated state election law was "unjustified."

Karamo was a community college educator and previously a poll challenger in Detroit, claiming to have witnessed fraud in the 2020 presidential election. She has called for a forensic audit of that election.

In a late October poll by WDIV/Detroit News, Benson is up 48.7% to Karamo's 38.6%. In a Cygnal poll from the end of October to the beginning of November, Benson is at 48.8% to Karamo's 41.5%.