14 individuals charged with participating in the January 6th insurrection—pardoned by President Donald Trump—either ran for office or declared their intention to run and have lost or withdrawn
Trump, the chief inciter of insurrection, holds the Oval Office
- Tue, Sep 22 2026 at 10:40 AM
Mark
Fourteen individuals charged with participating in the January 6th insurrection—and later pardoned by President Donald Trump—either ran for office or declared their intention to run during this election cycle and have already lost or withdrawn from the race.
Only one person in this group appears to be on the ballot in November: Cleophus Dulaney, a longshot candidate for Congress from Ohio.
One additional pardoned insurrectionist, Taylor Taranto, ran for a local Republican precinct officer role in Franklin County, Washington. According to the county auditor's office, he won the election this year after running unopposed.
Taranto has had multiple run-ins with the law since January 6th—in 2023, he was arrested near former President Obama’s home and charged with multiple counts of illegal firearm and ammunition possession.
In 2025, he returned to Washington, DC, wandering the neighborhood of Rep. Jamie Raskin—causing the Department of Justice to recommend that he be incarcerated again. Instead, he apparently returned to Washington state.
Since receiving pardons from Trump in January 2025, insurrectionists have sought political office from local positions like town clerk and school board all the way up to governorships and congressional seats.
At least 22 insurrectionists ran for office or declared their intention to run between the January 6, 2021 insurrection and getting pardoned by Trump, and all failed to get elected.
The pattern is striking: again and again, candidates who participated in January 6th have taken their case to voters—and again and again, they have failed to win elected office.
But we cannot mistake those results for the end of the threat.
Voters have shown that they can reject candidates who participated in the insurrection. But with Donald Trump, the chief inciter and continued apologist for insurrection, back in the Oval Office and election deniers continuing to seek positions of power, we cannot stop fighting to defend our democracy. The Big Lie remains an active threat to our democracy.
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