It’s one thing to complain about last-minute and emergency changes in voting procedures in 2020 and to advocate for a system that is secure and tilts toward in-person voting; it’s another to retail unproven allegations that, for most people, will always be associated with Trump’s worst excesses and the rioting at the U.S. Capitol.

The choice that was forced on Elder—admit that Biden won the election and alienate MAGA voters, or say it was stolen and alienate voters in the middle—will be faced by Republican candidates around the country for the duration.

That won’t change as long as Trump has an outsize influence on the party. He’s not letting 2020 go, rather is bent on vengeance against those Republicans he believes betrayed him by not embracing his various conspiracy theories.

Since he never admits the fairness of any loss, the number of allegedly rigged and stolen elections will only increase—the recall, Trump said in a statement, is “just another giant Election Scam, no different, but less blatant, than the 2020 Presidential Election Scam!”