WASHINGTON — Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, was heckled at a fundraising event Wednesday night when someone in the audience rebutted him for saying the 2020 presidential election wasn't stolen.
In the clip, posted to the YouTube channel of Bobby Piton, a Republican Senate candidate in Illinois, Crenshaw says: "Don't kid yourself into believing that's why we lost. It's not." Piton appears to interrupt Crenshaw by shouting, "You're wrong," and saying he has "plenty of proof" that the election was fraudulent.
Crenshaw responds: "Five different states? Hundreds of thousands of votes? You're kidding yourself."
Former President Donald Trump and his allies filed dozens of lawsuits contesting the results of the November election, the overwhelming majority of which were unsuccessful. The Supreme Court in March rejected the last remaining challenge to the election.
Piton appeared at one of Rudy Giuliani's election hearings to erroneously attack the voter data in Arizona.
In November, Crenshaw called for limiting mail-in voting nationwide and adding voter ID requirements and a national voter database. But more recently, he has signaled that it is time to move past Trump and questioning the election results.
"Look, he's, he's one of many leaders in the party. He's a former president. We're five months into President Biden's presidency, and there is a time to move on," Crenshaw said in an interview in May on NBC News' "Meet the Press."
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said voting rights legislation will be the Senate's first priority when it returns from its recess in September. The Senate passed a sweeping Democratic budget resolution along party lines early Wednesday.
