Failed Arizona pro-Trump gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is now running for Senate — and according to new reports, she is trying to walk back some of her election denialism and attacks on “McCain Republicans” and ingratiate herself to the moderate wing of the Republican Party.
This strategy is doomed to fail, suggested columnist Laurie Roberts in a blistering piece for The Arizona Republic.
“A source close to Karrin Taylor Robson [who ran against Lake in 2022’s GOP primary for Arizona governor nominee] confirmed Lake has contacted her former opponent — the one she savaged last year as a ‘gold digger,’ a con artist and a RINO who pretty much hates America,” wrote Roberts.
“No word on whether she has contacted former Gov. Doug Ducey, who she accused of supporting open borders and being a doormat to the Mexican drug cartels. Or Cindy McCain, who she implicated in a globalist plot to destroy America. Or Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates and Recorder Stephen Richer, both of whom she has accused of being criminals.”
This is essential for her, wrote Roberts, because according to one GOP strategist, “She can’t win if she doesn’t have that wing of the party unified behind her. There’s no way, the math doesn’t work.”
ALSO READ: Revealed: Bomb-loving neo-Nazi is now menacing children
Moreover, the stakes are even higher given that Arizona may shape up to be a three-way race between Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and independent incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema — and the latter, in particular, has suggested her strategy will be to go after Republican voters. “Suburbanite Republicans likely won’t have to hold their nose and vote for a Democrat or leave their ballots blank — not if Democrat-turned-independent Kyrsten Sinema is on the ballot,” Roberts said.
Ultimately, she wrote, “My guess is that Lake is not going to have much luck in retreating from the line she so brazenly, gleefully crossed in 2022 and 2023.”
And GOP strategist Barrett Marson agrees, telling Roberts, “I think I’m a pretty good PR/communication person but I have no f—ing idea of how she can erase two years of just the most vitriolic statements on the RINOs and moderate McCain wing of the Arizona Republican Party and independents, for that matter. I don’t know how one erases all the brutal things that she has said over the last year and a half or two years … especially if she’s not doing it publicly.”