Following weeks of mudslinging, insults and warring attack ads, the bruising primary in the Arizona Republican gubernatorial race is over. Kari Lake will be the GOP’s nominee on the November ballot, and it could not be worse news for Republicans.
A former local news talking head, Kari Lake is an attention-seeking opportunist who has never seen a marginalized group she could not weaponize for her own political gain. Endorsed by Donald Trump, she leaned fully into the most dangerous and anti-democratic Republican rhetoric possible in order to prove herself as extreme enough to win this primary — a strategy that will have disastrous results for Lake and Republicans come November:
LAKE WOULD BAN ALL ABORTIONS WITH NO EXCEPTIONS FOR RAPE OR INCEST. Lake is vehemently anti-abortion and supports existing Arizona legislation from the early 1900s that bans abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest and has said she will sign any anti-choice legislation that lands on her desk. She supports a “carbon copy” of Texas’ extreme abortion ban, which does not have exceptions rape and incest and encourages people to become abortion vigilantes and report people who are suspected of having abortion. She also supports banning medication abortion.
LAKE WOULD WORK TO DECERTIFY THE 2020 ELECTION. Echoing Donald Trump, Lake has called to decertify the 2020 election — despite no evidence of fraud after repeated, taxpayer-funded audits — and has made the Big Lie and election-related conspiracy theories central to her campaign. Trump, in his endorsement, made this explicit, saying that Lake would “fight to restore Election Integrity (both past and future!).”
LAKE HAS THROWN LGBTQ+ PEOPLE UNDER THE BUS FOR POLITICAL GAIN. Before running for office, Lake was a public supporter of LGBTQ+ Arizonans and their rights. She attended drag shows, hired a drag queen to perform at a party her daughter attended, and was a supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, including trans kids. She did a rapid 180 turn when she decided to run as a Trump-defending MAGA candidates; leaning into homophobic, transphobic, and other bigoted, violent tropes when talking about queer Arizonans. She supports Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Don’t Say Gay bill.
LAKE IS AN ANTI-VAXXER WHO DOESN’T BELIEVE IN SCIENCE. Lake, who has said she is not vaccinated against COVID-19, has also said that she doesn’t believe “a lot of the science, so-called science coming out of some of our so-called experts.” Nearly 30,000 Arizonans have died of COVID-19.
LAKE WOULD HURT ARIZONA STUDENTS, TEACHERS AND FAMILIES. Lake has campaigned on capping the wages of school administrators, installing cameras in classrooms so that parents can spy on students and teachers, and has said that teachers unions “don’t care about students.”
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Published: Aug 5, 2022 | Last Modified: Aug 26, 2022