In Race for Congress, Republican Election Deniers and Skeptics Seek Swing Seats

G.O.P. candidates in critical House districts have sought to moderate or gloss over their past questioning of the 2020 election results, as well as hard-right positions on social issues.

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Gabe Evans, now a Republican congressional nominee in Colorado, replied, “no-ish” when asked in January whether the 2020 election was “stolen from President Donald Trump.”

Back in January, three Republicans vying for their party’s nomination in a highly competitive Colorado congressional district north of Denver were asked for a yes-or-no answer about whether the 2020 election was “stolen from President Donald Trump.”

One hemmed and hawed before finally answering yes. The second offered a quick and decisive no. The third candidate — and the one who would emerge as the nominee for a seat that Republicans hope to flip next month in their drive to keep control of the House — equivocated.

“No-ish,” replied Gabe Evans, the 38-year-old state representative who is running to unseat Representative Yadira Caraveo, a first-term Democrat and the state’s first Latina member of Congress.

Mr. Evans is working to appeal to voters in this tossup district as a pragmatic Republican, calling himself a “common-sense” politician and in one ad proclaiming that “Yadira Caraveo is the real extremist.” But if he makes it to Congress next year, Mr. Evans will be part of a new class of Republicans who reflect the shift to the right that has been taking place within the party, even among those who represent purple districts.

House Republicans who have denied the 2020 election results or refused to commit to accepting the 2024 outcome, and who hold more extreme views on social issues, are running in critical congressional races throughout the country. They are poised to replace the mainstream conservatives who once formed the spine of the G.O.P. in Congress, and who have either left or been purged by a party that regards them as insufficiently hard-line or insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump.

Should they win their races and help Republicans maintain the majority in the House, these candidates will have a role to play in the certification of the 2024 presidential election — and in shaping the ideological agenda of the new Congress.

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