Democrats are using January 6 to hammer the GOP in state legislative races in a push to flip key seats

• Democrats have leaned into the issue of democracy in the 2024 presidential election.
• The party is also using the January 6 riot and its aftermath in critical state legislative races.
• The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee is revving up its push against 2020 election deniers.

Many voters have come to think of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol as an issue tied to the 2020 election and to lawmakers in Washington, DC. This year, it's also shaping up to define several important state legislative races across the country.

As Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in Michigan and Wisconsin in recent days, ex-GOP congresswoman Liz Cheney stood by her side to make a case as to why voters should reject former President Donald Trump's candidacy.

"Donald Trump is doing everything he can to try to get people to forget about what he did on January 6th," Cheney said during an appearance in Royal Oak, Michigan. "And when you think about that level of instability, the level of erratic decision-making, the misogyny, that's not someone that you can entrust with the power of the Oval Office."

"So, I think that we are facing a choice in this election," she continued. "It's not about party; it's about right and wrong."

Less than two weeks before Election Day, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee is revving up its push to defeat sitting GOP lawmakers and Republican candidates who either backed Trump's election denialism or were present in Washington on Jan. 6 when many of the then-president's supporters stormed the Capitol building. The DLCC has a particular focus on states where voting-related protests erupted in the lead-up to the Capitol riot.

"As we approach the first presidential election since the events of January 6th, 2021, state legislatures remain the building blocks of American democracy," Heather Williams, the president of the DLCC, told Business Insider in a statement.

A focus on Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania

The DLCC is backing Democrats in several states — with a particular spotlight on Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin — where candidates are going up against Republicans that the organization said had "led the assault on democratic institutions and voting access."

The DLCC is especially looking to make gains in state legislatures in Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. The GOP narrowly controls the Arizona legislature. Michigan has full Democratic control and Pennsylvania has a Democratic state House majority.

One of the highlighted Democratic candidates is Arizona state Senate candidate Judy Schwiebert, who is running against GOP state Sen. Shawnna Bolick in a Maricopa County-anchored legislative seat. After the 2020 presidential election, Bolick signed on to a letter asking then-Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the election in Arizona and other swing states where Republicans pointed to "well-founded accusations of electoral administration mismanagement."

In 2020, now-President Joe Biden won Arizona by a little over 10,000 votes out of nearly 3.4 million ballots cast, a Democratic Party triumph that many Arizona Republicans continue to doubt. (There was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election in Arizona.)

Another candidate the DLCC has promoted is Ashwin Ramaswami, a 25-year-old Georgia Democrat who is running in the suburban Atlanta-anchored 48th Senate district against Republican incumbent Shawn Still.

Still was one of 18 individuals who were indicted by Fulton County alongside Trump on charges of election interference in the 2020 race.

Last year, Still's lawyer in a court filing argued that the state lawmaker was "acting at the direction of the incumbent president of the United States." Still has maintained his innocence in the case.

Georgia, of course, was the site of perhaps Trump's biggest challenge to the 2020 election results. Biden won Georgia narrowly, edging out Trump by less than 12,000 votes out of nearly 5 million ballots. Trump was unsuccessful in his attempts to persuade GOP Gov. Brian Kemp and Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to help him overturn the statewide result.

"In 2020, MAGA allies in the states were instrumental to Trump's plot to overturn the elections — from helping stage local protests to sponsoring legislation to challenge election results," Williams said in the statement to BI. "Legislative control in key battleground states could come down to just hundreds of votes this year, which will in turn decide whether our elections and democracy prevail."