ARIZONA – Kari Lake’s “absolute clown show” continued to “[upend] Arizona GOP” weekend, as new reports detailed how Lake was “booed at Arizona GOP meeting after forcing Chair’s resignation” this weekend.
As a reminder, last Tuesday, widespread reporting indicated Kari Lake was allegedly “offered what she viewed as a bribe” by Jeff DeWit, then chair of the AZ GOP. That night Lake called for his resignation. On Wednesday, DeWit resigned, telling NBC News that “no one believes [Lake] can get across the finish line, particularly with independents.” On Thursday, Donald Trump pulled his appearance at the AZ GOP’s Freedom Fest, and soon after the entire Freedom Fest was canceled.
On Saturday, during the AZ GOP state committee meeting, Kari Lake received “boos” and “jeers” as she introduced the now chair of the AZ GOP, Gina Swoboda.
The events of last week sparked a new wave of concerns from Republicans about the viability of Lake’s Senate candidacy, summarized by one veteran Republican strategist fretting “Kari is toast.”
Read more:
- KNPX/12 News (video): Lake vs DeWit: The unanswered questions. Republican Barrett Marson: “My biggest problem with this is, how many voters did you gain by pulling this stunt? And I believe that answer is ‘zero,’and in fact you might have lost some actual voters that are out there.”
- Arizona Republic: Kari Lake’s use of secret recordings: Exposing corruption or political ‘theater’? Instead [Larry Sabato] argued the recorded conversation illuminates the simple fact that Lake is a risky prospect for Republicans looking to pick up a Senate seat […] John J. “Jack” Pitney Jr., a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, said […] “Her campaign is mostly theater, not policy substance.”
- Arizona Republic Opinion: Republican sponsored bill would make Kari Lake’s secret wiretaps illegal. In her mind I’d guess Kari Lake expected to be greeted as a conquering hero when she took the stage at the annual Arizona Republican Party meeting on Saturday at Dream City Church in north Phoenix. Instead, she got booed. She heard jeers.
- KJZZ: Swoboda received applause upon taking the stage, though Lake — who introduced her — was met with boos, according to those in attendance. Lake’s decision to secretly record conversations with DeWit – and the fact that those recordings were leaked to the media in an apparent attempt to force him out — has divided Republicans in recent days.
- CBS 13 Phoenix: Lake, who was shocked when the crowd booed her at the meeting, also endorsed Swoboda.
- The Messenger: Kari Lake Booed At Arizona GOP Meeting After Forcing Chair’s Resignation. ‘Can we agree that our elections are a mess in Arizona? No? Okay,’ Lake continued, despite the booing.
- HuffPost: Arizona Republicans Relentlessly Boo Kari Lake On Home Turf Following Scandal. Arizona Republicans let Kari Lake have it this weekend as they hurled boos and jeers her way at a state GOP meeting following a scandal involving her and the now-former head of the state’s party.
- New York Times: Arizona G.O.P. Picks New Leader After Scandal Creates a Vacancy. Kari Lake, a far-right candidate for U.S. Senate and close ally of Mr. Trump who had a central role in Mr. DeWit’s fall, took to the stage on Saturday to nominate Ms. Swoboda. But she was met with a din of boos and heckling from the crowd, an apparent rebuff to her involvement in the scandal […] Republican strategists said the move leaves an already divided party organization in disarray just as the campaign season is ramping up.
- The Daily Beast: Kari Lake Booed While Nominating New Trump-Backed Arizona GOP Chair. Lake nominated Gina Swoboda, another right-winger who was endorsed by Donald Trump, on Saturday at a GOP meeting in north Phoenix, where she was reportedly met with boos and jeers as she took the stage.
- Wall Street Journal Opinion (AUDIO): Kyle Peterson: But the challenge is that the leading candidate for the Republican nomination is Kari Lake […] And it just raises the question of whether Republicans are going to go into this election busy fighting each other […] And Mene, it seems like a repeat of a conversation we’ve had often on this podcast about candidate quality and the difficulty in some of these primary races of choosing candidates who are very able to appeal to the 10% of the electorate that votes in these primaries but then end up struggling when you get to the general election and you have to attract moderates and independents and swing voters.
- Daily Mail: Kari Lake is booed at bad-tempered meeting of the Arizona Republican Party days after chairman is forced to resign. Vera Gebran, who ran for state chair last year, said she had seen Lake speak all over the country, and had never seen her get such a hostile reception.’I think she was booed because of a perception that she’s gone too far,’ she said.
- Daily Mail: Inside the Arizona Republican Party’s ‘sinking ship’ after Kari Lake recording ‘NUKES’ chairman Jeff DeWit. The Senate candidate received a frosty reception inside the hall. Witnesses said her words were almost drowned out by booing as she delivered her endorsement of Swoboda […]
- Newsweek: On Saturday, a clip made the round on social media of Lake onstage at a meeting of the Arizona Republican Party, during which she received a notably mixed reception, with many audible boos mixed in with cheers, when she decried Arizona’s elections as “a corrupt mess.” “You may not agree with me on everything,” Lake said onstage. “But what we can agree on is that elections in Arizona are a corrupt mess election. Can we agree that elections are a mess in Arizona? No”