QAnon supporter who brags about being at Capitol riot wins GOP primary for Ohio House seat

A QAnon supporter who was present at the insurrection by supporters of former President Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has won a Republican primary for a competitive U.S. House seat in Cleveland, Ohio, defeating a sitting state representative and a sitting state senator in an upset victory that election forecasters say could help Democrats win the seat in the general election.

J.R. Majewski defeated state Rep. Craig Riedel and state Sen. Theresa Gavarone in the Republican primary on Tuesday. With 95% of precincts reporting, the vote stands at 35.8% for Majewski, while Riedel and Gavarone took 30.5% and 28.9%, respectively, according to the New York Times.

Majewski has a number of political liabilities.

He rose to prominence after painting a pro-Trump mural on his lawn ahead of the 2020 election, earning tweeted praise from Donald Trump before the former president was permanently banned from the social media platform over posts it said helped incite the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Majewski himself said he was at that riot, bragging on white supremacist websites about being on the Capitol grounds as the violent mob of Trump supporters attacked law enforcement and broke into the building to try to stop the transition of power from Trump to Joe Biden.

Majewski said he helped organize travel by a group of Trump supporters to Washington for the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the violent attack, claiming he spent $20,000 to help 30 “patriots” get to the nation’s capital for the event, Media Matters for America reported.

Majewski is also a supporter of the false QAnon conspiracy theory about supposed Satan-worshiping pedophile elites running the country that the FBI deems a domestic terror threat.

Majewski wore a QAnon t-shirt while he was being interviewed by “Fox & Friends” about the massive Trump sign he painted in his yard, and he often uses QAnon phrases in his social media posts, Media Matters reported.

Majewski will face incumbent Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, which was redrawn in 2021 from a seat Biden carried by 19 points to one Trump would have won by 3 points.

The state Supreme Court had struck down the original redistricted map in January; a second version passed on March 2 is being challenged in the court, but was used in Ohio primaries that took place on Tuesday.

Democrats say Majewski is too extreme to be elected.

“@JRMajewski won the #OH09 GOP primary. He’s a QAnon extremist who attended the #Jan6 insurrection. He tried to bust down the back door of democracy and is now closer than ever to waltzing in through the front. We cannot let him win,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee tweeted after Tuesday’s results were announced.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.