Kari Lake has won the Republican primary for a Senate seat in Arizona.
Lake, the glamorous former broadcaster who was defeated in her bid for governor in 2022, defeated Sheriff Mark Lamb in the primary. She is narrowly trailing Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in the polls for the Arizona Senate race.
They are vying for the seat vacated by Democrat-turned-independent Kyrsten Sinema in a race that could determine who controls the upper chamber. Republicans have made Arizona a top target this cycle.
Former President Donald Trump had a lead of about six points over President Joe Biden, according to the RealClearPolitics average in Arizona, before Biden announced he was dropping out of the race.
Trump gave a shout-out to Lake’s campaign on Monday, saying she is “fantastic” and “will not let us down.”
Kari Lake has won her Republican primary for Arizona Senate seat
Lake responds to the cheering crowd as she takes the stage before speaking after being declared the winner of Tuesday’s primary in Phoenix
Lake, 55, saw a meteoric rise in Trump’s world after the 2020 election when she was one of the biggest defenders of his claims of voter fraud. She lost multiple legal challenges to the election results in her own 2022 gubernatorial race and has yet to concede defeat in that race.
Just last month, she lost an appeal in the race, arguing that signatures on thousands of mail ballots from the Phoenix area had not been properly verified.
Lake has since distanced herself from some of her former far-right positions, particularly on abortion.
She spoke out against the reinstatement of her state’s Civil War-era ban on abortion, which she had previously called “a great law.” The law, now repealed, banned the procedure at all stages of pregnancy except to save the mother’s life.
Her campaign website states that she “does not support a federal ban on abortion” and has expressed support for a state law banning the procedure after 15 weeks.
Lake is a close ally of Donald Trump
Lake greets members of the press before casting her vote at Paradise Valley City Hall during the Arizona state primary.
All of this is in an effort to soften her image and appeal to Arizona’s many independents, who make up more than a third of the state’s voters.
But at the same time, Lake has worked to energize her MAGA base.
“We need to send people to Washington, D.C., that the swamp doesn’t want there,” she told a group of Arizona residents earlier this year. “And I can think of a few people they don’t want there. The first on that list is Donald J. Trump; the second is Kari Lake.”
“They’re coming after us with lawfare, they’re coming after us with everything. So the next six months are going to be intense. And we’ve got to — let’s see. What do we want to wear?
Bikini-wearing Kari Lake ditches Mar-a-Lago for the Bahamas for family vacation
“We’re going to buckle up. We’re going to put on our helmets or your Kari Lake hats. We’re going to put on the armor of God. And maybe strap a Glock to the side of us, just in case.”
Lake was a registered Democrat from 2008 to 2012, which she explained as a form of protest against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She is married to her husband Jeff Halperin, and the couple have two young adult children, Ruby and Leo.