opportunity to hear testimony about the events leading up to the insurrection, and donald trump s possible role in fomenting and pushing known election lies. known because even his family members and top republican aides were learning were adamant there simply was no there there. now, trump is not on any of these ballots. but the connective tissue is a platform that echoes his sentiments. but as much as the committee has tried to convey that what we saw on january 6th is a continued threat, the question is whether these hearings impact the voters at all. perhaps giving them any pause about electing a trump-backed candidate, assuming of course they even watched these hearings. and even still, the 2020 lies are casting a very big shadow over many of these 2022 races. particularly in south carolina, where the polls have now closed but votes are still being counted. so here s where that revenge part comes in again. you have two incumbent republican members of congress in this dee
trump s political strength is still evident at the polls. overnight south carolina republican congressman tom rice was defeated by a trump endorsed candidate. rice was one of ten republicans in the house who voted to impeach the former president and one of the first to face republican primary voters. another race in south carolina did not go trump s way, congresswoman nancy mace at times a trump critic survived a primary challenge. in another significant development republican mayor flores flipped a democratic house district in south texas, this is a pretty significant special election victory that builds on republican gains among latino voters in the region in the 2020 election. joining me now is cnn senior data reporter harry enten. harry, i think the marquee race last night was in south carolina, people looking to see what would happen to this republican that voted to impeach donald trump. looking to see what exactly would happen and here is what happened, look, it s
good evening, i m erin burnett, outfront tonight it is election night in america and front and center tonight are trump s lies about the 2020 election, as the january 6th committee lays out its case for how trump tried to overturn the election and knowingly lie to his supporters about it. trump s conspiracy theories are not just a thing about the historical record, you know, that we need to put in there. they re not a thing of the past, they re actually still metastasizing, just listen to two of the trump-backed candidate on the ballot tonight. tonight, will transform our election. you know that they did it to the election in this city. we fought right through to the end. they took the election. we the people know the election was stolen and we are not taking it anymore. so, one of those was adam running for nevada senate, other is katie arrington running for house seat in carolina, where polls closed a the the hour. counting now. trying to unseat incumbent nancy mace
and he wanted it to be true that his hand-picked attorney general would come out publicly and say that there was widespread voter fraud that would ultimately overturn the election results. and he wanted it to be true that rudy giuliani s wild suggestion that he proclaimed victory before all the votes were even counted would not be challenged by his campaign manager or any of his advisers. a group we learned today was on something called team normal. and he wanted it to be true that someone stole a second term from him, not that he just lost the election. now, these are things that he wanted to be true. but, as i said, there s a difference between believing something and wanting it to be true. now, the committee today set out to try to show the american electorate that trump couldn t possibly have actually believed any of the things he wanted to be true, not when adviser after campaign manager after campaign lawyer after deputy attorney general after attorney general after s
critical and methodical testimony at the second hearing. testimony from donald trump s own attorney general, william barr, as well as former top officials of trump s 2020 re-election campaign on how the former president refused to admit that he lost the election to joe biden, and he pushed his big lie of election fraud on the american people. now, i want you to pay close attention to the former attorney general bill barr telling the committee that trump had become detached from reality. the claims of fraud were bullshit, and, you know, he was indignant about that. and i reiterated that they d wasted a whole month on these claims on the dominion voting machines, and they were idiotic claims. and i specifically raised the dominion voting machines, which i found to be among the most disturbing allegations, disturbing in the sense that i saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations, but they were made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of peop