It is difficult to say how many people who participated in the rally on the Ellipse, march to the Capitol or storming the building will be on the ballot in 2022, because candidate filing deadlines are months away in many states.
A POLITICO review of Department of Justice case reports, social media posts, news accounts and interviews with attendees found that last year alone, 11 Jan. 6 protesters were elected to offices ranging from state legislature to city council to school board.
More than two dozen are running for Congress, state legislature or statewide office, including at least two protesters who actually entered the Capitol. A group of people on January 6 are getting ready to run for governor, among them a state senator from Pennsylvania and a leading voice in the national movement to undermine the 2020 election results.
Three candidates face charges related to the riots.
Few of them apologized for their involvement in the assault on the nation's temple of democracy that resulted in more than 700 arrests and 140 injured police officers.
Ryan Kelley, who is running for governor of Michigan, said in an interview with POLITI that they are going to try and twist it to fit the narrative that he is a terrible human being and an insurrectionist. I didn't do anything that was illegal. They want to push the insurrection narrative because you didn't like what happened that day.
The majority of protesters who will be on the ballot this year did not fight with police officers or enter the Capitol. The rally in support of President Donald Trump was not his first.
In November 2020 Kelley led rallies in Michigan to protest the presidential election results and in April 2020 she co-founded American Patriot Council, an organization that demonstrated against Covid restrictions at the Michigan Capitol Building. The April demonstration drew national attention when protesters tried to enter the chamber and then occupied the gallery above.
The organization's other co-founder, Jason Howland, was photographed inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Howland is running for state legislature. He didn't reply to many requests for comment.
Kelley said that he is an insurrectionist to some people. To other people, that is why they are voting for you. You were fighting for us because you walked the walk.
The Capitol riots have evolved into a perception with partisan gaps on the issues of culpability, motivation and severity. Democrats are determined to hold this class of candidates accountable for their role in the attack on the Capitol, and keep voters focused on the violent nature of the attack.
They were not out at the Women's March. They were angry with people that were chanting. People tried to crush police officers with barriers. Jessica Post is the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
The DLCC took the lead in identifying and shaming the people who protested on Jan. 6 and the people who signed on to an open letter asking Congress not to certify the election results.
6 candidates expect campaign opponents will associate them with the worst violence of the Capitol attack Teddy Daniels is a candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania's 8th District, and he said that he and other candidates feel they have been unfairly labeled as traitors.
I took four bullets in Afghanistan with an American flag on my uniform. Daniels, a veteran who was present for Trump's speech but did not enter the Capitol, said that the Left and the mainstream media want to call him a traitor. It is fuel in the tank.
Daniels said that he is confident that there will be no fraud in his race in 2022, largely because of the attention to election integrity that will be given after the 2020 election. Kelley said he hopes there won't be election fraud because people have their eyes open.
The Democrats want to point out the irony of their remarks after their involvement in the events of January 6.
It shows how disingenuous this continues to be that people are running in 2022, when they participated in this. If you think American democracy is broken, and free and fair elections are not being held, it's ridiculous that you think it's appropriate to put your name on the ballot.
