Dozens of US Political Candidates Affiliated with QAnon

US media is report­ing that dozens of US politi­cians run­ning for state and fed­er­al offices are align­ing them­selves with the QAnon con­spir­a­cy move­ment. Accord­ing to a Grid news report:

April 12, 2022 Dozens of politi­cians run­ning for state or fed­er­al office are align­ing them­selves with the right-wing, con­spir­a­cy-rich, some­times-vio­lent move­ment known as QAnon. They’re draw­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars in dona­tions as the movement’s pop­u­lar­i­ty stays strong among vot­ers, a Grid inves­ti­ga­tion has found. And despite the movement’s pen­chant for lies and vio­lence, key Repub­li­cans — from influ­en­tial megadonors to promi­nent elect­ed offi­cials — are wel­com­ing the QAnon move­ment into the par­ty, Grid found. In sum: QAnon appears to be a grow­ing polit­i­cal move­ment with increas­ing clout and sig­nif­i­cant main­stream appeal. Grid reviewed pub­lic records and report­ing, social media posts, and cam­paign mate­ri­als and events to iden­ti­fy and con­firm at least 78 QAnon-aligned can­di­dates run­ning for office in 26 states in 2022. They’re run­ning for gov­er­nor­ships, sec­re­taries of state, seats in the Sen­ate and House, and in state leg­is­la­tures. They have raised over $20 mil­lion this cycle — and over $30 mil­lion since 2018. All but six of the QAnon-aligned can­di­dates Grid exam­ined are Repub­li­can. Over a dozen are incum­bents: Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene (R‑Ga.) and Lau­ren Boe­bert (R‑Colo.) serve in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, while anoth­er 14 serve at the state lev­el, most­ly leg­is­la­tures. Most are run­ning against fel­low Repub­li­cans in pri­maries, which will take place through­out the spring and sum­mer. Ari­zona has the high­est num­ber of QAnon-aligned can­di­dates run­ning in 2022, at 13. Oth­er states with high num­bers of QAnon can­di­dates include Flori­da (12), Cal­i­for­nia (10) and Texas (six). “You will win by large margins”

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In Jan­u­ary 2021, the BBC described QAnon as follows:

At its heart, QAnon is a wide-rang­ing, unfound­ed con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that says that Pres­i­dent Trump is wag­ing a secret war against elite Satan-wor­ship­ping pae­dophiles in gov­ern­ment, busi­ness and the media. QAnon believ­ers have spec­u­lat­ed that this fight will lead to a day of reck­on­ing where promi­nent peo­ple such as for­mer pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Hillary Clin­ton will be arrest­ed and executed.media cap­tion­Trump on QAnon: ‘They do like me’ That’s the basic sto­ry, but there are so many off­shoots, detours and inter­nal debates that the total list of QAnon claims is enor­mous — and often con­tra­dic­to­ry. Adher­ents draw in news events, his­tor­i­cal facts and numerol­o­gy to devel­op their own far-fetched conclusions.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) has report­ed exten­sive­ly on the role that QAnon has played in many dif­fer­ent influ­ence operations.