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Molly Butler / Media Matters

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Here are the QAnon supporters serving in state legislatures

Written by Alex Kaplan

Research contributions from Eric Hananoki

Published

Updated

Update (last updated 5/30/23): This article has been updated with additional information and legislators.

Multiple people who have expressed some level of support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, which got its start on far-right message boards, have been elected in state legislatures throughout the United States.

The QAnon conspiracy theory revolves around an anonymous account known as “Q,” who claimed to have an inside scoop showing former President Donald Trump had a secret plot that would take down his perceived enemies, the “deep state,” and a cabal of Democratic pedophiles. Some supporters of QAnon have been tied to violent incidents and participated in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and government agencies have issued internal warnings over the false conspiracy theory.

There are 15 known current or former elected state legislators who have previously endorsed or given credence at some level to the conspiracy theory or promoted QAnon content. Among them:

  • Nine are currently in office as of May 2023. Six have left or been removed from office.
  • Overall, six are from Arizona, and there is one each from Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Washington.
  • All of them are Republicans.

Below are current and former elected state legislators who previously endorsed or gave credence to the conspiracy theory or promoted QAnon content, organized by state and then by last name in alphabetical order.

Jump to state…

  • Arizona

  • David Farnsworth

    David Farnsworth is a Republican member of the Arizona state Senate, representing District 10. According to the Arizona Mirror, Farnsworth has texted regarding QAnon, “I have talked to quite a few people who really believe they are good people who are trying to bring out the truth. You’re the first person I have known who doesn’t think they make sense.” Farnsworth also told the outlet, “My basic impression is that they are a credible group.”

  • Farnsworth QAnon

    From the Arizona Mirror

  • Mark Finchem (left office)

    Mark Finchem was a Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives, representing District 11, and left office in January 2023. He also unsuccessfully ran for Arizona secretary of state in 2022. Finchem has repeatedly posted QAnon content on Gab, including sharing a Q post. Finchem also appeared on a QAnon show (whose host participated in part of the insurrection), where he pushed a QAnon-connected conspiracy theory about watermarked ballots. He has spoken of “people involved in a pedophile network in the distribution of children. ... And, unfortunately, there's a whole lot of elected officials that are involved in that” -- tenets of the conspiracy theory. And Finchem attended a QAnon conference in Las Vegas that was organized by a QAnon influencer.

  • Mark Finchem QAnon post about the media

    From Mark Finchem's Gab account. 

  • Liz Harris (expelled from legislature)

    Liz Harris was a Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives, representing District 13, and left office in April 2023 after being expelled from the legislative body. Her campaign Facebook account has posted an image of a shirt with the QAnon slogan, and she has posted videos from a QAnon influencer on her personal Facebook page. In January 2021, she posted about “National Popcorn Day,” which had been hyped within the QAnon community to suggest Trump would somehow stay in power despite losing the election, and on March 3, 2021, she seemed to reference in a post the QAnon March 4 conspiracy theory.

  • wwg1wga shirt

  • Wendy Rogers

    Wendy Rogers is a Republican member of the Arizona state Senate, representing District 7. She promoted a tweet about a Q post connecting her to former President Donald Trump, tagging another account and telling it to “check this out.” She has also appeared multiple times on a QAnon show -- praising the show during one of her appearances -- and has purportedly texted and associated with its QAnon-supporting co-host. Rogers also attended a QAnon conference in Las Vegas that was organized by a QAnon influencer.

  • Wendy Rogers QAnon tweet

  • Janae Shamp

    Janae Shamp is a Republican member of the Arizona state Senate, representing District 29. On Facebook, Shamp has posted the QAnon slogan and content from multiple QAnon influencers. She also wrote that she listens “nightly” to X22 Report, a QAnon show.

  • Janae Shamp shared the QAnon phrase “WWG1WGA”

  • Justine Wadsack

    Justine Wadsack is a Republican member of the Arizona state Senate, representing District 17. The Arizona Daily Star reported that she has tweeted and written out the QAnon slogan -- “Where we go one, we go all,” or “WWG1WGA” for short -- more than once. Wadsack has since denied to the Phoenix New Times that she has ever supported QAnon, saying that “everything about politics intrigues me, all sides. Just because someone may be interested or intrigued by something doesn’t mean that we are conspiracy theorists.”

  • Justine Wadsack QAnon Twitter

  • Connecticut

  • Eric Berthel

    Eric Berthel is a Republican member of the Connecticut state Senate, representing District 32. Berthel had a sticker with the QAnon slogan on his car. He told Connecticut Public Radio that while he does not “believe in many of the wild-eyed theories reportedly associated with the QAnon movement about pedophile conspiracies or satanic cults,” he does believe in “stopping corruption in politics, holding government accountable and protecting individual freedoms,” which “the movement has come to represent.” He added that QAnon “has allowed for people who have previously felt disconnected from public policy and government to be part of the conversation.” Berthel later released a statement saying his “failure to look into the movement more deeply, which I take full responsibility for, led me to overlook the extreme views of the movement which I don’t subscribe to and find abhorrent.”

  • Eric Berthel QAnon

    From Connecticut Public Radio

  • Florida

  • Anthony Sabatini (left office)

    Anthony Sabatini was a Republican member of the Florida House of Representatives, representing District 32, and left office in November 2022. He also unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2022. Sabatini has tweeted a link to a site that collected Q posts.

  • Anthony Sabatini QAnon Twitter

  • Maryland

  • Dan Cox (left office)

    Dan Cox was a Republican member of the Maryland House of Delegates, representing District 4, and left office in January 2023. He also unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2022. Cox has tweeted the QAnon slogan.

  • Dan Cox QAnon Twitter

  • Michigan

  • Daire Rendon (left office)

    Daire Rendon was a Republican member of the Michigan House of Representatives, representing District 103, and left office in January 2023. She wore a pin with a Q on it during a protest event and told a Michigan reporter who asked about it that “Q is the highest level of security in the federal government.” She later told Vice that Q represents “a group of people who are digital warriors” and “pass information around and reveal information that’s been kept hidden for a very long time” from the “highest level of intelligence in the United States government.” Rendon added that she wore the Q pin at the event because “a lot of the people that are here today follow the same channels, and they understand.”

  • New Hampshire

  • Paul Terry

    Paul Terry is a Republican member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, representing District Belknap 7. He has posted the QAnon slogan on Facebook.

  • Paul Terry Facebook QAnon

  • New Jersey

  • Edward Durr

    Edward Durr is a Republican member of the New Jersey state Senate, representing District 3. He tweeted the QAnon slogan from a since-deleted account.

  • Edward Durr QAnon Twitter

  • Pennsylvania

  • Doug Mastriano

    Doug Mastriano is a Republican member of the Pennsylvania state Senate, representing District 33. He also unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2022. Mastriano has tweeted the QAnon slogan and has repeatedly tweeted the QAnon hashtag, as well as the conspiracy theory-related hashtag “#TheGreatAwakening.” He has also appeared on multiple QAnon-supporting shows. A spokesperson for Mastriano has claimed that Mastriano “strongly condemns the ‘Q anon’ conspiracy theory.”

  • Doug Mastriano QAnon Twitter

  • Tennessee

  • Susan Lynn

    Susan Lynn is a Republican member of the Tennessee House of Representatives, representing District 57. On her Facebook page, her cover photo has been a QAnon flag. She repeatedly tweeted the QAnon slogan before her account was suspended, and The Daily Dot reported that she had retweeted “a short video of a man taking an ‘oath of enlistment’ to be a ‘QAnon digital soldier.’” Lynn later told The Associated Press that “she does not support the conspiracy theory,” and claimed she did not know “where we go one, we go all” was the QAnon slogan, calling it a “very unifying slogan.”

  • Susan Lynn QAnon Facebook

  • Washington

  • Rob Chase (left office)

    Rob Chase was a Republican member of the Washington House of Representatives, representing District 4-Position 2, and left office in January 2023. According to a 2020 report from The Pacific Northwest Inlander, on Facebook Chase had “repeatedly directed followers to check out QAnon posts or podcasts, writing in January that ‘Q is posting again. This will be a week to remember,’ and in April that ‘Q is all hopped up tonight.’” The Inlander also reported that Chase had posted the QAnon slogan and written a blog post that described QAnon as part of a “‘battle that's been going on at least a few hundred years’ with ‘patriots’ like Trump trying to thwart ‘an ongoing plan by the Deep State to destroy America, because that is the only way they can establish a Global New World Order.’” Chase also told the outlet that he was “intrigued” by QAnon and “open to it,” though “he doesn't consider himself an outright QAnon supporter,” despite his previous comments.

  • Rob Chase QAnon Facebook