For Immediate Release
Friday, November 3rd, 2023
Contact: Olivia Taylor-Puckett, otpuckett@azdem.org
ONE YEAR OUT: Kari Lake Continues Pushing Dangerous Policies, Conspiracy Theories
ARIZONA -– One year out from Election Day 2024, U.S. Senate and GOP nightmare candidate Kari Lake continues to push dangerous policies and conspiracy theories unpopular with normal Arizonans.
Kari Lake is building her Senate candidacy on the same dangerous foundation she laid during her failed gubernatorial bid: supporting dangerous abortion bans with no exceptions for rape and incest; denying the outcome of the 2020 and 2022 elections; calling the January 6th insurrection a “fed-surrection” and “staged riot”; and sharing stages with conspiracy theorists and grifters.
Kari Lake continues to support bans on abortion without exceptions for rape or incest that would put women’s lives in danger:
- Lake said she was “incredibly thrilled” by Arizona’s territorial abortion ban, which did not include rape or incest exceptions and would jail doctors for performing abortions, calling it a “great law.” When asked about the ban this week, Lake said her position had not changed.
- Before Roe v. Wade was overturned. Lake said, “I joined Congressman Gosar in praying for God’s guidance to the Supreme Court and an end to this national disgrace created under Roe v Wade.”
- Lake said, abortion is “not a choice that somebody gets to make […] That’s not a medical choice.”
Kari Lake has continued to take every opportunity to spread conspiracy theories and deny the results of the 2020 and 2022 elections:
- Lake continues to deny the validity of both the 2020 presidential election and her own 2022 gubernatorial election loss despite multiple losses at every level of Arizona state courts.
- Lake said, “But I want you to know that I identify as a proud election denying deplorable. Are you with me? And my pronouns are […] and my pronouns are I/Won.”
- A 12 News anchor has described what Lake says about elections as, “What Kari Lake says in front of crowds and on social media is often not found credible in a courtroom.”
Kari Lake is the GOP’s nightmare candidate who “can’t win a general election”:
- 12 News Sunday Square Off: Matt Benson, Republican Consultant: “…There’s two plus years of record that’s going to come back at her in TV ads and what not from everything she said during the last cycle, including telling McCain Republicans like myself to get the hell out. So that’s gonna be, look, you can’t just snap your fingers and disappear it.”
- Politics Unplugged: Barrett Marson, Republican: “Kari Lake’s popularity has decreased since 2022. To which I always say it’s probably because she spends more time at Mar-a-Largo and Bedminster than Arizona.”
- Washington Examiner’s Zachary Faria: The GOP should prioritize winning over loser retreads. “That is the lesson Republicans need to learn and have thus far continued to prove they won’t. Nominating […] Arizona loser Kari Lake for Senate set the stage for critical losses the GOP can’t afford, and yet that is the path Republicans are continuing to walk down.”
From her failed run for governor to her candidacy for Senate, Kari Lake has continued her extensive history of praising and sharing stages with extremists:
- Lake’s Senate campaign has been endorsed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Abe Hamadeh, and U.S. Representative Eli Crane.
- Lake has deep ties to neo-Nazis, antisemites, and white nationalists. These relationships include: Congressman Paul Gosar who himself has “lengthy ties to white nationalists, pro-Nazi bloggers, and the far-right fringe”, AZ State Senator Wendy Rogers who shares antisemitic memes and called for “hanging her political enemies,” and with whom she shared a stage in October.
- Kari Lake was listed as a speaker at fellow election denier Mike Lindell’s “Election Summit” alongside conspiracy theorists like: Laura Loomer, Michael Flynn, Kurt Olsen, Tina Peters, and Rudy Giuliani.
###