The Republican speaker of the Arizona House who gave explosive testimony at the Jan. 6 committee about the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election was defeated by a Trump-endorsed rival in his race for a state Senate seat on Tuesday. Rusty Bowers—who infamously said he’d still vote for Trump despite efforts by Trump and Rudy Giuliani to get him to change Arizona’s elector slate based on bogus claims of voter fraud—lost out to former state Senator David Farnsworth in the race for Arizona’s 10th District. Early tallies showed Farnsworth taking 64 percent of the vote. After his testimony to the House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol, Bowers faced scathing criticism from the Arizona Republican Party, which called for voters to “expel him permanently from office.” Trump also attacked Bowers directly. “Remember Arizona, your so-called ‘Speaker,’ Rusty (an appropriate name because he is Rusty, just like steel gets rusty and weak) Bowers, is absolutely terrible,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Monday.
