EXCLUSIVE — As GOP Senate hopeful Kari Lake prepares to take the stage at the Republican National Convention for a prime-time speech, her opponent is releasing a new ad featuring her perspective that both the 2020 presidential and 2022 Arizona gubernatorial elections were “stolen.”
Rep. Ruben Gallego’s (D-AZ) campaign released a new digital ad Tuesday called “Duly Elected Governor,” which shows a compilation of clips of Lake calling herself the “legitimate governor,” even after the former television news anchor lost a gubernatorial election in November 2022 by more than 17,000 votes to now-Gov. Katie Hobbs (D). Courts have repeatedly rejected Lake’s lawsuits challenging the election results.
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Some of the clips are from the last cycle, while others are more recent, such as a clip of Lake speaking to voters in front of a confederate flag from June. The ad ends with a graphic on the screen that reads: “Kari Lake is only out for herself.”
The ad comes after Lake filed another appeal last week asking the Arizona Supreme Court to declare her governor two years after she lost that election, despite her current run for the state’s open Senate seat. Her attorneys filed a petition arguing the Superior Court and Court of Appeals should have reinstated her case over new evidence.
Lake is expected to take the stage Tuesday at the RNC, delivering “a family-focused” speech, according to a New York Post report .
Senate Republicans have embraced Lake, with the main campaign arm endorsing her Senate run in February, even after national Republicans kept her campaign for governor at arm’s length in 2022 during concerns about her electability in the battleground state. GOP leaders have previously advised Lake to avoid airing grievances about previous elections and to put her focus on her Senate campaign.
“As Arizonans tune into the RNC convention, they’ll be reminded that Kari Lake will say anything to get power — even if it means lying to Arizonans and undermining our elections,” said Hannah Goss, a spokeswoman for Gallego’s campaign in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner. “ Lake remains focused only on herself, not Arizona families, which is exactly why voters will reject her at the ballot box yet again this year.”
Lake’s campaign is attempting to turn the tables on Gallego, calling him an “original election denier,” pointing to a CNN interview the congressman did during former President Donald Trump's first-term, in which he said some people don’t view him as the legitimate president after he won the electoral college vote, but lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton at the time.
“Ruben Gallego spread baseless conspiracies about the 2016 election. He is the original election denier,” a Lake spokesman said. “He is a career politician who has accomplished nothing for Arizona. Little Ruben is trying to run and distract from his 100 percent alliance to Joe Biden. It won’t work.”
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Lake has maintained her assertion that the 2022 gubernatorial election was stolen and kept up her legal challenges. Her challenges to the integrity of the election have led to further legal troubles, including a lawsuit from Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, who accused her of defamation.
Polling shows a tight contest between the two, but the most recent surveys indicate Gallego has an edge over Lake in the critical swing state. According to an average of recent polls , Gallego leads by 3 points. However, Lake’s allies point to Trump’s polling in Arizona against President Joe Biden as a good sign for her campaign. Trump leads Biden by 5.7 points in that same average of polls.
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