Many GOP candidates still echo Trump's 2020 claims. Lots of voters want to move on

Georgia Republican U.S. Senate nominee Mike Collins is seen on June 16 in Jackson, Ga. Colin Hubbard/AP hide caption

President Trump is still talking about the 2020 election — even as early voting is underway in this midterm cycle and the Republican majorities in Congress are at risk.

And while many Republican candidates, even in some critical tossup races, still back the president's baseless claims about election integrity, some GOP voters say they are ready to move on.

In Georgia, Rep. Mike Collins, the Republican nominee for Senate, launched his first congressional campaign a few months after Trump pressed Georgia's secretary of state to find enough votes to reverse his 2020 loss.

In one campaign ad from that race, Collins falsely claimed that Trump won Georgia and said, "Georgians are tired of weak-kneed, spineless politicians who won't fight for Trump, get to the bottom of 2020 and fix our elections." The spot ended with Collins firing a long gun into a bin with a "voting machine" label.

Now as Collins runs for Senate, he has reiterated his position that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. He has also expressed support for compensating some people prosecuted for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election.

"It bothers me a lot," said Lynn, a lifelong Republican voter in Georgia, who asked NPR to publish only her first name for fear of being ostracized by friends and family for her views. "It worries me for him to get elected. It concerns me any time someone gets pulled into those ridiculous looking-back discussions."

At a farmers market in Alpharetta, a tony suburb outside of Atlanta, Lynn said she could have easily voted for the other two Republicans who ran in the primary. Now she has not ruled out voting for Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, in part because of Collins' positions on the 2020 election.