It's Official: Kari Lake Ready To Refuse To Concede To Ruben Gallego In 94 Days
Sure, she could win. But this headline's more fun. We'll risk it.
Arizona held its primary elections Tuesday, solidifying the race to replace retiring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of the Kyrsten Sinema Party. The candidates will be Rep. Ruben Gallego (D), who ran unopposed, and imaginary Republican Gov. Kari Lake, who has yet to concede that she lost to real Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) in 2022. Lake was able to beat two other Republican candidates in the Senate primary, so we’ll assume she accepts the results.
If Lake wins in November, she will presumably have to resign her imaginary office in order to be sworn into the Senate in January; if she loses, we assume she’ll turn up in DC anyway and demand to be seated.
At her election night party Tuesday, Lake offered precisely the sort of very normal rhetoric that has made her a favorite among MAGA Republicans and has made most other people look at her like she’s waving a decapitated doll around and insisting it’s her spiritual advisor.
"This is not a battle between Democrats and Republicans. This is a battle between good and evil," Lake said at her election night event. "This is a battle between the people who want to destroy this country and the people who want to save America."
Gallego, a current member of the House and a Marine vet, has not actively announced any intention to destroy this country, and indeed emphasizes his willingness to work across the aisle with Republicans to solve problems the country faces, so that just shows you how evil he is.
In a statement Tuesday, Gallego said that voters don’t need to be afraid of the scary lady with the perfect skin and dead soulless eyes. Arizonans, he said,
have made clear that they want a U.S. Senator who can bring people together to defend abortion rights, cut costs for families, protect our water future, and take care of our veterans — and that’s exactly what I intend to do.
From now until November, I welcome all Arizonans — Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike — to join our team and help defeat Kari Lake and her dangerous plan to ban abortion and hurt Arizonans.
Gallegos has a decided fundraising advantage over Lake, with $8.2 million in his campaign coffers (the only context in which people still keep coffers these days) compared to about $2.1 million for Lake as of the last reporting deadline.
When running for governor in 2022, Lake made a point of telling Republicans who supported the late Sen. John McCain to “get the hell out” of today’s GOP if they hadn’t already, and has so far shown no signs of willing to mend fences, because that would be weakness.
Arizona voters don’t seem inclined to go with Lake; an aggregate of polling in the race shows Gallego with 47.1 percent and Lake with 43 as of August 1, and Arizona women are especially wary of Lake’s flip-flopping embrace of the state’s freakish 1864 abortion law, even though it was eventually killed by the state Lege. Lake initially endorsed the extreme abortion ban, but once it proved toxic, said the state supreme court was “out of step with Arizonans” in allowing it to become law.
In other races, a MAGA wingnut finally managed to turf out Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, who infuriated Trumpers by accurately saying that Joe Biden won the state’s most populous county, and thence the state, in 2020. Richer was defeated by State Rep. Justin Heap in a 42.2 percent to 35.9 percent vote.
Heap has criticized Maricopa county’s elections, but stopped short of actually saying he believes the 2020 vote was stolen; that was enough to win him the support of many Trumpy election deniers in Arizona, who will now expect Donald Trump to win Arizona this fall, no matter what the actual vote may be.
Lake herself endorsed Heap in June, and probably expects him to give her the election too, but sadly for her and the other MAGAs, Richer will continue to serve for this election. In the general election, Heap will face Democrat Tim Stringham, who ran unopposed in the D primary. Might be a good time for Dems and people who like democracy to rally around him, huh?
It’s about to get very interesting, especially given Democrats’ hopes of organizing a blue wave this fall — a drive that’s gotten fresh excitement with Kamala Harris’s becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. This week’s Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll of swing states has Harris beating Trump by 49 percent to 47 percent in Arizona — and that’s with registered voters in general, not likely voters, who have this year leaned more toward Democrats. Still within the margin of error and there’s a long three months to go, but it’s looking encouraging. Just not for election deniers.
Also, in a fun electoral footnote, disgraced former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, that old racist piece of shit, has lost a second primary bid to become mayor of the Phoenix suburb of Fountain Springs, getting just 15 percent of the vote in a three-way primary. Fuck you very much, and we’re looking forward to the day when people have no idea who you were.
PREVIOUSLY!
[NBC News / Arizona Republic / NBC News / Town of Fountain Hills]
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"𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐬. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥," 𝐋𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭. "𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚."
I mean, she's not wrong.
there should be a law so that a person can't run for office if they haven't conceded they lost their last election