Her victory makes her the fourth Republican to ride Trump’s campaign lies to win an at-large nomination in Arizona, following CNN’s predictions earlier this week for the US Senate, secretary of state and attorney general.
Lake, who was endorsed by Trump, will defeat Karyn Taylor Robeson, a former member of the State Board of Regents and the GOP front-runner who was backed by outgoing Gov. Doug Ducey and former Vice President Mike Pence.
The race in its final days has become a proxy battle in a tug-of-war between Trump and Pence over the direction of the Republican Party, with Trump visiting Arizona to campaign for Lake and a slate of election-denying candidates he had endorsed for state office and Pence campaigned with Robson.
Lake has made lies about voter fraud a centerpiece of his campaign, an approach likely to continue in November’s general election matchup against Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs, the secretary of state who is defending Arizona’s 2020 presidential results and voting system. by mail .
Hours before the polls closed, Lake had already told reporters that she would either win or the result would be rigged.
“If we don’t win, there’s some kind of fraud. And we already know that,” she said Tuesday.
In other top Arizona races, Blake Masters, the one-time venture capitalist, will secure the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, while Arizona Republicans have chosen state Rep. Mark Finchem, who is denying the election, as their nominee to take the helm of the election machine of the state , CNN projects. And in the race for attorney general, Trump’s preferred candidate, election denier Abraham Hamadeh, won the Republican nomination, CNN also predicted.
Masters will face Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who was unopposed in Tuesday’s primary, in what is expected to be one of the most competitive and expensive midterms in the nation, with 50-50 control of the Senate on line.
Masters was chief operating officer of Republican megadonor Peter Thiel’s investment firm, and his campaign was bolstered by more than $15 million in spending from Thiel.
Masters, who spread lies about the 2020 election results and accused Democrats of trying to “change the demographics” of the country, defeated businessman Jim Laymon and Arizona Attorney General Mark Burnovich, among others, in the GOP primary in Tuesday.
Finchem is seeking to be the chief elections official in a state that conducts its voting mostly by mail and has been the subject of a series of conspiracy theories offered by Trump and his allies, who falsely claim that the 2020 election was stolen by the former president. Arizona’s Secretary of State is the state’s second-highest elected executive and first in line to succeed the governor, as the state does not have a lieutenant governor.
Finchem was a member of the far-right Oath Keepers in 2014 and was an organizer of the Stop Theft movement, spurred on by Trump’s lies about election fraud.
Finchem said the state legislature should be able to overturn the will of voters in presidential elections — a position that, if adopted by Republicans after the November election, could lead to a crisis in the 2024 election in one of the most the competing states in the country.
He will face Maricopa County incumbent Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, in the fall.
This story has been updated with additional information.
Add Comment