For Immediate Release
Thursday, November 9th, 2023
Contact: Olivia Taylor-Puckett, otpuckett@azdem.org
One Month Later: Kari Lake’s Senate Campaign is Still GOP’s Worst Nightmare

ARIZONA -– Tomorrow marks one month since Kari Lake launched her campaign for U.S. Senate that has had Washington Republicans “freaking out,” Arizona Republicans saying Lake “can’t just snap [her] fingers and disappear” her dangerous, unpopular record on abortion and election conspiracy theories, and a month in which Kari “Arizona First” Lake scheduled more events out of state (5) than in Arizona (2).

Kari launched her campaign at the headquarters of Jetset Magazine, an “ultra-wealthy lifestyle publication” which describes its’ audience as “the wealthiest demographic in the world,” targeting “only the one percent of the world’s population who control more than fifty percent of the world’s wealth.” Lake was introduced by fellow failed 2022 candidate and election conspiracy theorist Abe Hamadeh, who continues to employ the same losing legal strategies to overturn his loss as Lake.

In the week after Lake’s launch, Republicans and conservatives went on the record to make clear Kari Lake “can’t win a general election” thanks to her obsession with election denialism and dangerous abortion stances. Here are a few quotes:

• 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.”

• The Gaydos and Chad Show’s Larry Gaydos: “No one is better than Kari Lake at alienating Republicans. No one is better than Kari Lake at alienating a large number of independent voters […] Kari Lake can’t win a general election. She’s kryptonite to general elections. She’s a joke. So, I mean, guess if you want to vote for her. Go ahead. I just thought Republicans wanted to win this time around.”

• ABC 15 Arizona Family: “‘She has an even bigger job to just tell everyone who she can be. We already know who she is, and the voters rejected her once,’ said Republican political consultant Barrett Marson.”

Here’s what Lake has been up to her first month on the campaign trail:

• Appearing at CPAC’s Save America Dinner alongside noted conspiracy theorists Ken Paxton, Steve Bannon, Robert Malone, and Kash Patel, showing she still holds the same fringe conspiracy theories and dangerous ideas that led to Republicans ‘freaking out’ about her ‘nightmare’ Senate candidacy.

• Saying that if she wins next November, Senator Mitch McConnell will be replaced as majority leader according to a report from The Messenger.

• Headlining a gala in Lubbock, Texas just days after Republican Lubbock county commissioners passed an ordinance seeking to prevent women from crossing state lines to access abortion care, alongside County Commissioner Jason Corley who voted in favor of the ordinance, and anti-abortion extremist Mark Lee Dickson– which shows she continues to support dangerous abortion bans with no exceptions for rape or incest.

• In her first interview with an Arizona media outlet that doesn’t peddle in conspiracy theories, Lake doubled down on her support  for Arizona’s “draconian pre-statehood law” that would ban abortion without exceptions for rape and incest and confirmed that her dangerous views on abortion “haven’t changed, actually.”

Lake has also racked up endorsements from notable extremists, conspiracy theorists, and far-right members of Congress:

• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who faces felony securities fraud charges, is under FBI investigation, and is being sued by a disciplinary committee of the Texas State Bar due to his baseless attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

• Chad Prather, who primaried Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

• Arizona State Representative Alex Kolodin, who lost a court case to end early voting in Arizona, tweets about shooting people, and “cannot stop responding to critics with ‘Blow Me’.”

• Arizona State Senator David Farnsworth, who “believes the devil stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump.”

• Arizona State Senator Jake Hoffman, who owned Rally Forge LLC, infamously exposed as a social media “troll farm,” and fake elector.

• Former Congressman Louie Gohmert, who denied the results of the 2020 election, potentially incited violence before January 6, and compared being gay to bestiality.

• Congressman Burgess Owens, who said the overturning of Roe v. Wade “was a surreal and exciting moment for me.”

• Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, who was subpoenaed to testify in special counsel probe of Trump.

• Congressman Ronny Jackson, who introduced legislation preventing service members who have to travel to receive abortion care from being reimbursed.

• Congressman Jim Banks, who supports abortion travel bans.

Kari’s first month of campaigning to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate was marked by her spending more time out of Arizona than in; supporting the same dangerous abortion bans without exceptions for rape or incest as she did in ‘22; pushing the same election conspiracy theories; and associating with the same right wing extremists.

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