Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake says she takes her inspiration from both Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan. It shows.
She’s combative in a very Trumpian way while adhering to sound conservative principles with her policy proposals. She agrees with Mr. Trump that the 2020 election was stolen and rarely makes a public appearance where she doesn’t mention it.
But while Trump tore the Arizona Republican Party in two with his claims of fraud, Ms. Lake has shown herself to be a uniter, largely because she has stressed policy prescriptions that Arizona Republicans enthusiastically support.
The party’s coalescence behind her isn’t unanimous, but it has given the political newcomer momentum in the race in the final weeks before the election, according to interviews with Republican and Democratic officials, strategists, and voters.
Ms. Lake in an interview said the first things she would do as governor would be to take control of the southern border from the federal government and work to secure elections.
“Don’t believe what the, you know, corrupt media is saying that ‘Oh, the party is not going to come.’ They have completely come behind us,” said Ms. Lake, 53 years old, in her campaign office with a large photo of Mr. Trump behind her.
Lake has parlayed her celebrity as a local Fox TV news reader into a campaign that is currently neck and neck with Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in the polls. But like other Republicans in Arizona and across the country, Lake is surging at just the right time.
Related: Tulsi Gabbard to Campaign for MAGA Firebrand Kari Lake
A big part of her momentum comes from the inexplicably stupid decision of Hobbs not to debate her. Hobbs said Lake wants a “spectacle” more than a substantive policy discussion and blamed the Arizona GOP primary debates for making voters “dumber.”
Calling half the electorate “dumb” does not win many elections, but it gets worse.
“A debate never helps a candidate win,” the secretary of state told HuffPost after an event Saturday with about a dozen people at a restaurant in Glendale, Arizona. “I mean, it is — we’re talking to voters and I guarantee it’s not something they’re concerned about. I guarantee the person who is rationing their insulin or opening their refrigerator and figuring out how they’re going to put food on the table with the groceries they have left for the week … isn’t going to open their ballot and say, ‘Damn, I wish Katie had done a debate.’”
Hobbs is taking heat for not debating Lake, a former newscaster who is slightly leading Hobbs in the race’s polling average, meaning it’s still anyone’s race to lose with just over two weeks until Election Day.
A debate never helps a candidate win? I wonder if President Mondale would have agreed with that statement.
As it turns out, voters are far less concerned about Lake’s statements on the stolen 2020 election than the media wants them to be. When the national media gets frustrated because ordinary voters don’t do what they command, they get a little cranky.
“I’ll be very disappointed if Kari Lake doesn’t win. And even though she’s a little Trumpy, that’s not a deal breaker for me,” said Steve MacMillan, 59, a resident of Goodyear, a Phoenix suburb. And that’s the bottom line. Being pro-life is not a “deal breaker” for many voters. Supporting Donald Trump is not a “deal breaker” for a lot of Republicans.
Democrats may want those issues to be “deal breakers.” But the closer we get to the election, the more we’re finding out that the cost of groceries and gas is breaking the deal for Democrats.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member