Kari Lake Responds to Reports She'll Run for US Senate

Arizona Republican candidate for governor Kari Lake speaks with supporters at a rally in Phoenix on Nov. 3, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

Arizona GOP candidate Kari Lake on Tuesday brushed aside speculation she might be running for Arizona’s Senate seat in 2024, following anonymously sourced reports that she might.

A CNN reporter, Kate Sullivan, wrote on Twitter Monday, “I’m told Kari Lake is considering running for the US Senate seat held by Kyrsten Sinema in 2024.” Sullivan did not divulge more information about where she got that information.

But in a statement on Tuesday, Lake’s campaign disputed the report and noted that she is still challenging the midterm election results in court. Earlier this month, Arizona’s Court of Appeals agreed to expedite her challenge against Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs and Maricopa County officials that argued there were enough Election Day problems that swung the race out of her favor on Nov. 8.

Her campaign told The Gateway Pundit that “Kari is hyper-focused on winning her court case as she is the duly-elected Governor and her Election Case proves that,” adding that “hundreds of thousands of invalid ballots were counted in Maricopa County alone” and there were “lines of 4 hours or more at some locations” on Election Day. Maricopa County officials on Nov. 8 confirmed there were ballot printing problems and told voters to place their ballots in separate drop-boxes for later counting.

“That is just a BIT of what went wrong in Arizona,” the statement said. “Kari Lake is fighting to protect the sacred vote of the People of Arizona.”

The statement noted that “dozens of people” have contacted Lake to suggest that she run for the seat currently held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who recently changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Independent.

“There have been several polls showing she is the strongest candidate and could win,” it said. “The corruption in DC is as bad as it is in AZ and we need to root out that corruption, but Kari’s focus is on her election case and saving the good people of Arizona from [Hobbs].”

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, then a Democrat and now an Independent, is seen during a hearing in Washington on July 16, 2019. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo)

Earlier this month, Hobbs—who in her previous position as Arizona’s secretary of state was in charge of running the election—was sworn in as governor, has already signed four executive orders, and has proposed a budget. She delivered her first address to the state Legislature last week.

“Chasing conspiracy theories, pushing agendas for special interests, attacking the rights of your fellow Arizonans or seeking to further undermine our democracy will lead nowhere,” said Hobbs.

Appeal Expedited

On Jan. 9, the Arizona Court of Appeals ordered that Lake’s case could go to conference on Feb. 1, agreeing that the challenge should be handled as a “special action petition.” Lawyers for Hobbs have until Tuesday to respond and argue why Lake’s petition should be rejected.

The Arizona Supreme Court denied Lake’s petition to transfer her lawsuit earlier in January. It wrote that the case would be heard before the Appeals Court first.

That Maricopa County judge, Peter Thompson, tossed Lake’s lawsuit on Dec. 24 after a two-day trial and wrote she did not produce enough evidence. Lake had filed a challenge days after the statewide canvass was completed, arguing that she should be installed as governor or that a re-do of Maricopa’s gubernatorial election is warranted.

Data shows that Lake lost to Hobbs by about 17,000 votes, but Lake contended in her suit that she would have either won or had a good chance of winning if ballot printing machines in Maricopa, the state’s most populous county, worked properly on Nov. 8. Expert testimony that was given in court from pollster Rich Baris found that Election Day voters trended Republican.

Baris said that he believes 25,000–40,000 people who would normally have voted actually didn’t cast ballots as a result of the printer errors. That estimate, he said, was based on the number of voters who started answering his exit polls but didn’t finish the process amid the tabulator problems in Maricopa County.

Officials for Maricopa County, however, wrote in late November that voters were not disenfranchised on Nov. 8.

Thomas Liddy, the division chief for the Civil Services Division of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, wrote in a letter that “no voter was disenfranchised because of the difficulty the county experienced with some of its printers.” He was responding to a letter issued by then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s office that demanded answers after voters complained to his office.

The Epoch Times has contacted Lake’s team for comment.