Election Denier favored in Arizona

  

In Arizona, Republican conspiracy theorist Kari Lake is slightly favored to win the race for Arizona governor.

Lake is running against Democrat Katie Hobbs.

According to FiveThirtyEight’s Deluxe Model, Lake has a 62% chance to win the election.

Incumbent Republican Governor Doug Ducey is term limited and can’t run for reelection. 

 

Kari Lake is a passionate promoter of the big lie that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election.

Lake is a former local television news anchor. 

 

 

As a former journalist myself, I find it shameful for someone who worked in the news industry to run for public office based on egregious lies.

“Local TV News Anchor runs for Governor by Lying to Voters” sounds like it should be an onion headline.

Unfortunately, it’s all too real.

 

During a Republican primary debate, Lake said she would not have certified Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Arizona if she had been governor. 

Hobbs, the current Arizona Secretary of State, says on her campaign website that the 2020 election in Arizona was “historically secure.”

Arizona’s current Republican Governor, Doug Ducey, certified the 2020 election results in his state, even though President Trump asked him not to do so.

President Trump has spread false and inflammatory claims about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. He refused to admit he lost the election, going so far as to sick a mob on Congress to prevent Congress from certifying Trump’s electoral college defeat.

Trump’s fragile ego doesn’t allow him to admit he lost an election. 

Trump is particularly fond of Kari Lake, who he has endorsed. 

 

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler, has designated Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was rigged as a “bottomless Pinocchio,” or a lie that Trump repeats over and over.

 

Due to Trump’s lies, 61% of Republicans believe President Joe Biden only won the presidency due to voter fraud, according to a nation-wide Monmouth University poll conducted in September.

But according to the same poll, 63% of Americans as a whole believe President Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election fair and square.

 

If Lake loses, she may not accept the outcome of her own race.

When asked on CNN if she would accept the result if she lost, Lake answered, “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result."

That eerily echoes Trump’s comment in 2016 that he would, “totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election, if I win.”

 

Arizona is a swing state that could play a significant role in the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

It is vital that political candidates accept the outcome of elections when they lose.

Because neither Lake nor Trump are willing to do so, they are a threat to free and fair elections, and thus to democracy itself.

Lake deserves to lose in Arizona, and lose big.