There's a large swath of dumbassery in the current congress, especially the house and especially since maga, but don't make the mistake of thinking that all cons are dumb. Tons of the senators are lawyers. They aren't ignorant of the law, they're evil people using the law to line their pockets and make the world a worse place. Turtle McConnell couldn't have been grifting in politics for 137 years if he was stupid.
He’s a useful idiot. The intelligent people on the conservative side understand that he’s a moron, it’s just with his popularity and lack of ethics, they can get him or his admin to do whatever corrupt shit they want. All that really matters to them is that whoever they run gets elected so they can steal/swindle money somehow.
States actually have quite a lot of control of who to put on their ballots. The prelude to the First Civil War had quite a lot of slaving garbage states, like Texas, only state to fight a war for slavery twice, not carrying Lincoln on the ballots, for example.
Colorado had to go through legal challenges and courts to remove a twice impeached rapist that’s hell bent on turning America into his own personal bank, but Texas can just remove people at will?
I think any state could, if they don't have a legal system in place for that or just don't care about it. Look at how some R states were/did change their laws so if they decide they don't like the outcome of an election (claiming it was 'rigged' or whatever), the legislature can just pick a winner themselves.