Friday, April 12th, 2024
ARIZONA -– Kari Lake will say or do anything to gain power and advance her own political agenda, and as she takes the stage on Sunday she will not be able to hide her record of supporting the 1864 abortion ban.
Kari Lake spent the week lying about her record supporting the 1864 territorial ban on abortion without exceptions for rape or incest, but Lake “can’t run from Arizona’s draconian abortion ban” and Arizonans won’t “buy Kari Lake’s fake concern over an Arizona Supreme Court abortion ruling.” Republican consultant Barrett Marson said, “Kari Lake’s campaign? Done.”
Lake’s court battles continue to plague her campaign as her attempt to evade discovery in the defamation case against her was panned as a “bad strategy legally and a bad strategy politically” that shows she’s “not winning back the mainstream Republicans” as Arizonans “are just really tired” of her election denialism
Republicans have been sounding the alarm on Kari Lake’s “limelight”-chasing campaign, saying they are “not sure what [Lake’s] path is forward,” that “Kari Lake looks increasingly like she isn’t a candidate that can win” as her “attempt at a campaign makeover appears to have fallen flat.”
Here’s what you need to know about Kari Lake:
Lake can’t cover up her extreme abortion record that includes support for the 1864 ban and Arizonans won’t “buy Kari Lake’s fake concern over an Arizona Supreme Court abortion ruling:
- Lake supports Arizona’s “draconian” territorial ban with no exceptions for rape or incest. “Kari Lake does not oppose it and that’s something she made clear two years ago.”
- Just yesterday, Lake doubled down on supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which paved the way for the 1864 territorial ban she calls a “great law.”
- Kari Lake has a yearslong, on-camera record of praising Arizona’s territorial abortion ban, saying abortion is “not health care,” and she “very much support[s]” banning medication abortion.
- Kari Lake says abortion is “killing,” “sacrifice,” “execution,” and the “ultimate sin.”
Lake’s “limelight”-chasing campaign has Republicans sounding the alarm, saying they are “not sure what [Lake’s] path is forward:”
- The New York Times reported that Republicans are warning that Kari Lake’s power hungry quest to stay in the “limelight” “will result in another defeat” as Lake “can’t be trusted in anything she says or does.”
- NBC reported Arizona Republicans are expressing frustration as Lake has “rejected the premise that she needed to change,” suggesting “she says one thing one day and then acts completely counter to that the next” while she“quadruple[s] down on ultra MAGA.”
- Lake is “raising eyebrows” for “how much attention she’s paying to her national profile” as she approaches “more than 50 out-of-state trips” since the beginning of 2023. Lake has been chasing the “limelight” as doubts increase among Republicans that Kari Lake’s “anywhere but Arizona” campaign is “making the kind of outreach to independent voters necessary to win a general election in Arizona.”
Lake’s campaign is a nightmare for Republicans as she continues to relitigate her failed 2022 gubernatorial election and the 2020 presidential election – even after national Republicans “urge[d] her to look forward:”
- National Republicans publicly urged Lake to stop litigating past elections, but since her launch, Lake has shown she is “still an extremist” who has “reverted to more dramatic rhetoric.”
- After Kari Lake asked the “U.S. Supreme Court to endorse a conspiracy theory” and attempted to evade discovery in the defamation case against her, Arizona Republicans say “Kari Lake looks increasingly like she isn’t a candidate that can win.”
- An Arizona pollster said the defamation case against Lake “creates a big liability if she moves on to the General Election for Republicans hopes to take back the Senate.”
Lake fundraises with QAnon supporters, defends insurrectionists, and boosts far-right conspiracy theories:
- Last month, Lake refused to answer questions about her campaign’s ties to a white nationalist.
- Kari Lake gave a paid speech in 2023 to a group labeled an “extremist, anti-government group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.” Lake was paid $15,000 for her speech to the group, whose “executives drew national scrutiny for social media remarks after a 2019 massacre of Latinos that blamed the bloodshed on mass immigration, not the gunman.”
- Lake’s fundraisers hosted by “the wife of controversial ‘finfluencer’” and “wealthy QAnon supporters” are the “latest example of Lake […] undermining the notion that she’s distancing herself from sources of potential controversy to appease national Republicans.”
- Kari Lake defends Jan. 6 rioters on the Senate campaign trail.
- Kari Lake hosts “The Kari Lake Show” on a new far-right online network, where she continues to “burnish her credentials with the far right even as GOP leaders have hoped she would focus her campaign on issues more likely to resonate with the broader public in Arizona.”