James Carl Marchant Jr. (born May 28, 1956) is an American politician in Nevada. A member of the Republican Party, he represented the 37th district in the Nevada Assembly, covering parts of the northwestern Las Vegas Valley, from 2016 to 2018. He was the Republican nominee for Nevada's 4th congressional district in 2020 and for Secretary of State of Nevada in 2022. He is a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump. In 2020, Marchant lost his U.S. House election to Democrat Steven Horsford, while Trump lost his reelection bid in the concurrent presidential race. In the aftermath of the election, Marchant became a staunch proponent of the disproven conspiracy theory that the election was "stolen" from Republicans through mass voter fraud. He sued to have his own defeat overturned, and became actively involved in numerous unsuccessful efforts to send alternate electors to Washington and overturn the presidential election. Marchant subsequently announced his candidacy for Nevada Secretary of State office in 2022. He was endorsed by far-right congressmen Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of neighboring Arizona, as well as former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Marchant was the president of the America First Secretary of State Coalition, a group of Republican 2022 Secretary of State candidates supporting the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. He repeatedly said that he would not have certified President Joe Biden's victory in Nevada if he had been Secretary of State at the time of the election, and that he would consider doing the same in 2024 if Biden carried the state again. He also tied himself closely to QAnon, a disproven far-right conspiracy theory, attending an October 2021 conference associated with the movement in Las Vegas. On election day, Marchant lost the 2022 election to Democrat Cisco Aguilar by 2.2 percentage points. Early life and education Marchant was born on May 28, 1956, in Gainesville, Florida. He graduated from Troy University with a degree in criminal justice, and moved to Nevada from Florida in 2005. Marchant worked for the family business from 1978 until 1984, when he left to found his own business. Political career Nevada State Assembly In 2015, Marchant threatened to run against then-Speaker John Hambrick; he ultimately decided to challenge Glenn E. Trowbridge instead. Marchant defeated Trowbridge and then Democrat Sean D. Lyttle in the general election. In 2018, Marchant was unopposed in the Republican primary,