Congressional candidates echo Donald Trump by refusing to concede and making unproven fraud claims

Errol Webber was never expected to have much of a chance at winning his race for Congress. The Republican had challenged a popular incumbent, Rep Karen Bass, in a deep-blue swath of Los Angeles, so it was no surprise that returns showed him losing by more than 72 percentage points.

But that did not stop Mr Webber, a 33-year-old movie producer, from questioning the results in California's 37th District in the House.

"I'm going to the Los Angeles County Registrar's Office in Norwalk today to audit the vote counting procedures," he wrote Monday. "I will NOT concede. Every LEGAL vote needs to be counted!"

It has become a familiar cry among losing GOP candidates in recent days, including from inside the White House. As Donald Trump makes unfounded allegations of voting fraud and demands a recount in the presidential election, his rhetoric and unwillingness to concede appears to be trickling down the ballot.

Despite having lost to their Democratic opponents by decisive margins last week, Mr Webber and a few other Republican congressional candidates - all fervent Trump supporters - have followed suit, making their own baseless claims about the election.

While several top Republicans have backed Mr Trump's efforts to contest his loss to President-elect Joe Biden, these candidates appear to be applying the same approach to their own Senate and House races, refusing to concede and spreading unverified allegations of their own.

In Maryland, Republican House candidate Kimberly Klacik declared Sunday that her campaign would "investigate" the results of her race against Rep Kweisi Mfume, in which the incumbent trounced her by more than 40 points.

It was unclear how she would probe into the results, and neither Ms Klacik nor her campaign manager immediately responded to a request for comment from The Washington Post.

Mr Mfume had already defeated Ms Klacik in an April special election following the death of Elijah Cummings, who previously held the Baltimore-area seat. But after Mr Trump shared one of her provocative campaign ads on Twitter, the Republican's fame and funds both surged earlier this year, The Post's Meagan Flynn reported, with a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in August.

Still, she appeared to fare only slightly better in a rematch against Mr Mfume last week. With an estimated 81 per cent of votes counted, Ms Klacik had claimed just over one-quarter of the votes, and according to the Baltimore Sun, was trailing him in returns for both mail-in and in-person voting on Election Day.

Over the weekend, however, she made false claims about those results - with no evidence to back it up.

"I beat my opponent on day of & in-person early voting, along with absentee. However, 97k mail in ballots were found in his favor?" she wrote Sunday, retweeting a post from Mr Trump making baseless claims of a "stolen election."

Like Ms Klacik, Republican Senate candidate John James, a 39-year-old businessman, has refused to concede in his Michigan race against Democratic Sen Gary Peters.

The heated contest was too close to call on Election Day. But by the evening of November 4, Mr Peters was winning by a sufficiently wide margin that the Associated Press called the race shortly after 9pm. As of early Tuesday, Mr Peters maintained a lead of about 1.5 per cent, or about 87,000 votes.

Mr James said he would accept the final results "and the will of the people" once all ballots have been counted. But he also had "deep concerns that millions of Michiganders may have been disenfranchised by a dishonest few who cheat," his campaign said in a statement on Thursday that offered no evidence of such allegations.

The candidate's lawyer sent a letter to election officials in Detroit alleging problems with the vote count, WKAR reported, and state and national Republicans, including Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, amplified similar claims.

Last week, she alleged that Republican poll watchers at the city's vote-counting site were being forced to stand so far back they could not monitor the ballot-tallying activities. (GOP lawsuits making similar claims in Michigan have been dismissed so far, though a third allegation with six signed affidavits was filed Monday.)

As the non-profit news outlet Michigan Advance noted, Mr James's advisers, including Republican operative Stu Sandler, have also spread conspiracy theories about voter fraud at the Detroit facility.

"The idea that ballots miraculously showed up at... 3.30am is voodoo," Sandler wrote in a since-deleted tweet that had been flagged by Twitter, according to the Advance. "The tricks and shenanigans have to stop."

While other James supporters have pointed out that Mr Peters took about three weeks to concede in his 2002 race for Michigan attorney general, that race was decided by about 5,200 votes, a much thinner margin.

Next to the well-funded Ms Klacik and the nationally-backed Mr James, Mr Webber's refusal to accept defeat may be the most unlikely of all.

Originally from Jamaica, the film producer and frequent Trump rally attendee was running his first race for US political office - though, as the Los Angeles Daily News reported, he had scant fundraising or campaign efforts.

One campaign video repeated several familiar GOP talking points: That his home state of California had been ruined by "vindictive Democrat politicians" and their "failed leftist policies," and that his city of Los Angeles was an "American nightmare" rife with violence and homelessness.

Days after both he and Mr Trump lost their election, their Twitter feeds remained largely indistinguishable.

"We will take back this country from the frauds, the cheats and the liars!" Mr Webber wrote Monday. "They will NOT get away with this!"

Washington Post