ReportWire

Tag: Katie Hobbs

  • Democrat Katie Hobbs keeps lead in race for Arizona governor

    Democrat Katie Hobbs keeps lead in race for Arizona governor

    [ad_1]

    PHOENIX (AP) — The release of ballots on Saturday from Arizona’s largest county netted Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake a few thousand votes, but she’s still trailing Democrat Katie Hobbs by tens of thousands of ballots.

    Hobbs led Lake by 1.6 percentage points after the release of roughly 85,000 votes from Maricopa County. Approximately 270,000 ballots remain uncounted statewide, and Hobbs leads by about 35,000 votes.

    Data analysts from both parties believe the count will eventually shift in Lake’s favor, but it’s not yet clear whether she will pick up enough votes to overtake Hobbs. Republicans have watched anxiously since Tuesday as Hobbs has defied their expectations and increased her lead each day, including Saturday when combined with results from the rest of the state.

    About 50 conservative protesters gathered outside the fence around Maricopa County’s election tabulation center in downtown Phoenix at midday Saturday to draw attention to their concerns about the slow pace of the vote count. Protracted counts are the norm in Arizona, where a record number of people returned mail ballots on Election Day.

    A few protesters wore ballistic vests or carried handguns as a number of county sheriff’s deputies nearby guarded the complex.

    Arizona was central to former President Donald Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election and cast doubt on the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who won his race Friday, pressed to move past false claims of a fraudulent election that have shaped the state’s politics for the past two years.

    “After a long election, it can be tempting to remain focused on the things that divide us,” Kelly said Saturday in a victory speech at a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix. “But we’ve seen the consequences that come when leaders refuse to accept the truth and focus more on conspiracies of the past than solving the challenges that we face today.”

    Kelly’s victory Friday combined with a win Saturday by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada means Democrats will retain control of the Senate for the next two years.

    Kelly won after distancing himself from Biden and building an image as an independent lawmaker not beholden to his party. He cast himself in the mold of his predecessor, the late Republican John McCain, whose seat Kelly won in a special election two years ago. His victory this year gives him a full six years starting in January.

    “Sen. McCain embodied everything it was to be a leader at a time when our state and our country remain divided,” Kelly said.

    Kelly’s opponent, Republican Blake Masters, did not concede, saying in a statement that his team will make sure every legal vote is counted.

    “If, at the end, Senator Kelly has more of them than I do, then I will congratulate him on a hard-fought victory,” Masters said. “But voters decide, not the media; let’s count the votes.”

    The AP declared Kelly the winner after the release of results from 75,000 ballots in Maricopa County made clear Masters could not make up his deficit.

    Hours earlier, Masters said on Fox News that Maricopa County, which is by far the largest in the state, should stop counting ballots and start over because election officials had inadvertently mixed counted and uncounted ballots.

    Megan Gilbertson, a spokeswoman for the county elections department, confirmed ballots were mixed at two vote centers but said there are contingencies to reconcile each batch and get an accurate count. She said that similar mistakes have been made before and that the process has been in place for decades and is overseen by observers from both parties.

    “There is no legal process in place to stop counting and start over,” Gilbertson said. “At Maricopa County, we follow the laws as they are written.”

    Outside the elections building in Phoenix, some protesters carried American flags, campaign signs for Lake or signs with slogans such as “Kari Lake Won,” “Count The Votes” and “Hobbs is a Cheat.”

    Sheriff Paul Penzone said he pulled deputies from around the county and from other assignments to protect the ballots and the people counting them. Noting the protest was prompted by a tweet from a state lawmaker, Penzone urged elected officials not to summon demonstrators to the elections building.

    Aaron Kotzbauer, a 52-year-old Republican from the Phoenix suburb of Surprise who voted for Lake and the other GOP candidates, said he protested at the elections office after Trump lost in 2020 and came again Saturday to “see if we could get some sunshine to disinfect the Maricopa County election center.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Bob Christie contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections. And check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Police: No powder in envelope reported by candidate’s office

    Police: No powder in envelope reported by candidate’s office

    [ad_1]

    Police say there was no powder in an envelope that was opened at the Phoenix campaign headquarters of Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor of Arizona

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Here’s Why Arizona And Nevada’s Key Senate Races Are Still Undecided

    Here’s Why Arizona And Nevada’s Key Senate Races Are Still Undecided

    [ad_1]

    The results of pivotal races in Arizona and Nevada that could determine which party controls the Senate remain up in the air, and it could take several more days until there’s clarity on who won.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Arizona Vote-Counting Issues Lead To Baseless Fraud Claims—And Contradictory Advice—From GOP Leaders

    Arizona Vote-Counting Issues Lead To Baseless Fraud Claims—And Contradictory Advice—From GOP Leaders

    [ad_1]

    Topline

    Some vote-counting machines in Arizona’s Maricopa County malfunctioned on Election Day, leading state Republican leaders to spread unsubstantiated claims of fraud and offer contradictory advice to voters, with the state’s GOP chair Kelli Ward claiming without evidence that voters who follow county officials’ advice would essentially be letting someone else “decide how you voted.”

    Key Facts

    Tabulators in roughly 20% of Maricopa County’s polling places are struggling to read some ballots, according to county Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates (R), who called the situation a “technical issue” in a press conference Tuesday afternoon, adding “none of this indicates any fraud.”

    If a tabulator isn’t working, the county encouraged voters to place their ballots into a secure box marked “3,” and their votes will be tabulated in the evening at a central counting center.

    However, in an interview Tuesday with former President Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon, Ward claimed voters who follow Maricopa County officials’ advice by submitting ballots into the secure box are sending their votes to “digital adjudication,” and urged voters to ignore the county’s guidance if at all possible.

    Ward tweeted her own advice on Tuesday, telling voters to stay in line and request to use another machine called an accessible voting device, claiming voters who check into a polling place are stuck “like a prisoner” and can’t vote at another location—the county’s election department, however, denied that claim, saying voters have the option of checking out, turning in their ballot and going to another of the county’s polling sites.

    In a tweet, Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake—who, like Ward, has repeatedly spread the false conspiracy that the 2020 election was stolen—also urged voters to ask for an accessible voting machine or wait until a tabulator starts working again, but differed from Ward in her advice for voters who “can’t wait,” advising them to put their ballots into box 3.

    Trump-backed Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters retweeted a post urging voters not to leave their polling place for a new one if their votes aren’t counted, while Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social “don’t get out of line until you cast your vote,” claiming “they are trying to steal the election with bad machines and DELAY.”

    Key Background

    The baseless allegations of voter fraud come after months of debunked vote-rigging theories were spread by many GOP leaders, including 202 Republican congressional candidates who believe the 2020 election was either flawed or based on fraud, according to data from the Brookings Institution. A Gallup poll released last week found three in five Republicans believe votes in the midterms will be cast and counted inaccurately, compared to just 15% of Democrats. Nearly 40% of Republicans said they would blame voter fraud if the GOP doesn’t take control of Congress, including 19% who said it’s “highly likely” Republicans would lose because of fraud, according to an Axios-Ipsos poll released last month. In Maricopa County, misinformation claims “really kicked into high gear” last week, Gates said, although there have been numerous unsubstantiated allegations of fraud since the 2020 elections, leading to a 2021 audit of tabulators. Meanwhile, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs—the Democratic candidate for governor—is investigating numerous reports of voter intimidation.

    Surprising Fact

    Maricopa County, a traditionally Republican-leaning county that includes Phoenix, Glendale, Mesa and Scottsdale, is not only Arizona’s most populous county, but it’s also run by Republicans, including Gates. Election workers in the county have faced more than 100 violent threats and intimidation ahead of the election, including emails, social media posts and threats of posting photos of election workers, Reuters reported.

    Further Reading

    Republican Confidence In Elections Drops To New Low Ahead Of Midterms, Survey Finds (Forbes)

    Nearly 40% Of Republicans Will Blame Election Fraud If Party Loses In Midterms, Poll Finds (Forbes)

    [ad_2]

    Brian Bushard, Forbes Staff

    Source link

  • Police Arrest Man Over Burglary Of Arizona Gov. Nominee Katie Hobbs’ Office

    Police Arrest Man Over Burglary Of Arizona Gov. Nominee Katie Hobbs’ Office

    [ad_1]

    PHOENIX (AP) — Phoenix police have made an arrest in connection with a burglary at the campaign headquarters for Katie Hobbs, the Democratic nominee for governor.

    An officer saw a news story with surveillance photos of the suspect and recognized him as the man arrested for a burglary at another office in the area, police said. The officer contacted the jail to ensure the 36-year-old suspect would not be released and re-arrested him for the burglary at Hobbs’ office.

    The man had items missing from Hobbs’ office with him when he was arrested for the unrelated burglary, said Phoenix Police Sgt. Phil Krynsky.

    Police have not said whether the theft was politically motivated.

    Hobbs’ campaign manager, Nicole DeMont, has said items were taken during the burglary, but the campaign has declined to say what they were.

    Hobbs is in a tight race against Republican Kari Lake, a former television news anchor. Hobbs has received death threats stemming from falsehoods over the 2020 election in Arizona, which she oversaw as secretary of state.

    In a statement Wednesday, DeMont blasted Lake and her allies for “spreading dangerous misinformation and inciting threats against anyone they see fit,” but stopped short of blaming Lake or her supporters for the break-in.

    Lake summoned reporters to her office Thursday for an “emergency press conference” and lectured journalists for reporting on the break-in and DeMont’s statement without evidence it was tied to Lake.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Police arrest and name suspect in burglary of Arizona governor candidate Katie Hobbs’ campaign HQ | CNN Politics

    Police arrest and name suspect in burglary of Arizona governor candidate Katie Hobbs’ campaign HQ | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    The Phoenix Police Department has arrested a 36-year-old man in connection with a break-in at Democratic Arizona gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs’ campaign headquarters earlier this week.

    Daniel Mota Dos Reis was booked on one count of third-degree burglary, according to the department.

    On Wednesday night, a patrol officer saw a news story that included a surveillance image and recognized the man shown as a suspect who had been arrested earlier in the day in connection with a separate, unrelated commercial burglary, police said in a statement Thursday.

    “The officer researched the arrest and learned the suspect, 36-year-old Daniel Mota Dos Reis, was still in jail but would soon be released. The officer contacted the jail and was able to re-arrest Dos Reis,” according to the statement.

    CNN is working to identify an attorney for Dos Reis.

    Police earlier said in a statement that “items were taken from the property sometime during the night.”

    A source within the Hobbs campaign had told CNN that CCTV video showed the man they say broke into the campaign headquarters. The Hobbs campaign hasn’t been able to get a full inventory of what was taken, the source added.

    Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state, faces Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake in next month’s midterms.

    Nicole DeMont, who manages Hobbs’ gubernatorial campaign, told CNN in a statement Wednesday that “Secretary Hobbs and her staff have faced hundreds of death threats and threats of violence over the course of this campaign. Throughout this race, we have been clear that the safety of our staff and of the Secretary is our number one priority.”

    “Let’s be clear: for nearly two years Kari Lake and her allies have been spreading dangerous misinformation and inciting threats against anyone they see fit,” DeMont continued. “The threats against Arizonans attempting to exercise their constitutional rights and their attacks on elected officials are the direct result of a concerted campaign of lies and intimidation.”

    DeMont said that intimidation “won’t work,” and expressed thanks to the Phoenix Police Department for keeping Hobbs and her team safe.

    Lake on Wednesday appeared to claim without evidence that Hobbs’ campaign was lying about the motivations behind the incident and said it “sounds like a Jussie Smollett part two,” in reference to the actor who was convicted of making false reports to police that he was the victim of a hate crime in January 2019.

    When asked by CNN if she had a response to DeMont’s claim that the incident was a “direct result of concerted campaign of lies and intimidation” by Lake and her allies, the Arizona GOP nominee shot back and said the statement was “absolutely absurd.”

    “And are you guys buying that? Are you really buying that? Because this sounds like a Jussie Smollett part two,” Lake said before launching into a lengthy attack on the media.

    This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Suspect Arrested For Breaking Into Arizona Democratic Gov. Candidate’s Office

    Suspect Arrested For Breaking Into Arizona Democratic Gov. Candidate’s Office

    [ad_1]

    Topline

    A suspect was arrested Thursday after allegedly breaking into Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ gubernatorial campaign office, police announced Thursday, a crime that the Democratic candidate has linked to ongoing threats of voter intimidation and allegations of fraud in the state ahead of the midterm elections.

    Key Facts

    Phoenix Police said Thursday an arrest has been made regarding a commercial burglary at the address of Hobbs’ campaign headquarters, which the campaign confirmed to CNN was linked to the burglary at its office.

    The campaign and local police announced Wednesday a break-in had taken place on Tuesday, with police saying in a statement only that “items were taken from the property sometime during the night.”

    Hobbs’ campaign blamed supporters of Kari Lake, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, for the break-in in a statement Wednesday, saying Lake and her allies “have been spreading dangerous misinformation and inciting threats against anyone they see fit.”

    Attacks on elected officials and voter intimidation threats “are the direct result of a concerted campaign of lies and intimidation,” the Hobbs campaign said.

    Lake responded to the allegations earlier on Thursday, calling them “absolutely absurd” and “despicable” and that the situation “sounds like a Jussie Smollett part two.”

    Police have not yet named the suspect who was arrested, saying further information would come Thursday afternoon.

    Big Number

    45.7%. That’s the share of voters who say they’ll support Hobbs in the gubernatorial race on average as of Thursday, according to an aggregate of polls in the race compiled by FiveThirtyEight. Lake is leading Hobbs in the polls, earning 48.5% support on average.

    Chief Critic

    “I can’t believe she would blame my amazing people for that, why she would blame me,” Lake said Thursday about Hobbs pointing the finger at her campaign for the burglary. “I don’t even know where her campaign office is.”

    Key Background

    The break-in at Hobbs’ office comes amid concerns about voter intimidation and harassment in Arizona as voting in the midterms has gotten underway, which Hobbs has also overseen in her role as secretary of state. Hobbs has referred at least six cases of alleged voter intimidation and harassment of an election worker to the state Attorney General and U.S. Department of Justice in recent days, her office announced, including reports of voters being recorded, photographed and followed by a vehicle after casting their ballots at a drop box. Two lawsuits have now been separately filed by voter advocacy organizations seeking court orders to stop grassroots groups and individuals from intimidating voters, alleging group members have harassed voters at ballot drop boxes, and in some cases have been “armed and wearing tactical gear.” While no allegations have been directly linked to Lake’s campaign, the right-wing candidate has made false claims of election fraud in the 2020 election and refused to explicitly confirm she’ll accept the results if she loses her race. In a tweet posted in July, Lake posted a photo of a ballot drop box that warned, “We are watching drop boxes throughout the state.”

    Further Reading

    Arrest made in connection to burglary of Arizona gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs’ campaign HQ (CNN)

    Break-in at Arizona governor candidate Katie Hobbs’ campaign office in Phoenix; several items taken (Arizona Republic)

    Top Arizona election official refers more cases of potential voter intimidation to law enforcement (NBC News)

    More Than 40% Of Americans Worried About Voter Intimidation In Midterms, Poll Finds (Forbes)

    [ad_2]

    Alison Durkee, Forbes Staff

    Source link

  • Kari Lake doesn’t commit to accepting Arizona election result if she loses | CNN Politics

    Kari Lake doesn’t commit to accepting Arizona election result if she loses | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Arizona Republican Kari Lake would not commit Sunday to accepting the results of her upcoming election for governor if she loses.

    “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result,” the GOP nominee told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” after being asked three times whether she would accept the election’s outcome. Lake dodged the question the first two times.

    “If you lose, will you accept that?” Bash asked, to which Lake replied again: “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result.”

    Lake, who has the backing of former President Donald Trump, has repeatedly promoted his false claims about the 2020 election. A former news anchor at a local Fox station in Phoenix, she has said that she would not have certified President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in Arizona, repeatedly calling the election “stolen” and “corrupt.” She said Sunday that the “real issue” is that “the people don’t trust our elections.”

    Lake is currently in a close race with her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs, who currently serves as Arizona’s secretary of state. Hobbs’ national profile rose in the aftermath of the 2020 election amid Republican efforts to sow doubt over the presidential result in Arizona.

    In a separate appearance on “State of the Union” on Sunday, directly following Lake’s interview, Hobbs said Lake’s refusal to say whether she would accept the results of their election was “disqualifying.”

    “This is somebody who will have a level of authority over our state’s elections, the ability to sign new legislation into law, the responsibility of certifying future elections. And she has not only, as you heard, refused to say if she will accept the results of this election, but also whether or not she would certify the 2024 presidential election if she’s governor,” Hobbs said.

    She continued, “This is disqualifying. This is a basic core of our democracy.”

    Hobbs on Sunday defended her refusal to debate Lake in the gubernatorial election, saying the Republican was “only interested in creating a spectacle.” Hobbs said she believed Arizonans would not base their voting decision on whether or not there was a debate between the two candidates.

    Lake had earlier slammed Hobbs’ decision not to engage in a debate, accusing her opponent of “cowardice.”

    Hobbs explains why she won’t debate Kari Lake

    Bash pressed Hobbs on her stance on abortion rights, and the Democrat declined to specify what, if any, restrictions she would support in an abortion law.

    “So just to be clear, if you become governor, you will push for a law that has absolutely no limits in any point of the pregnancy on abortion? That’s your position? That’s what you would want to be the law of the land in Arizona?” Bash asked.

    Hobbs responded: “The fact is right now that we have very limited options and that we need to get politicians out of the way and let doctors provide the care that they are trained to provide, the health care that their patients need. Politicians don’t belong in those decisions.”

    An Arizona appeals court earlier this month temporarily blocked the enforcement of a ban on nearly all abortions across the state. The ruling temporarily allows health care providers to perform abortions up to 15 weeks of pregnancy until Planned Parenthood Arizona’s appeal is resolved.

    Abortion has been a key issue in this year’s midterm elections following the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn of Roe v. Wade that held there was no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion. A recent survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that about half of US registered voters said they were more motivated to vote in the midterm elections because of the high court’s abortion ruling.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Election denier Kari Lake has a real shot of winning a swing state governorship | CNN Politics

    Election denier Kari Lake has a real shot of winning a swing state governorship | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    One of the big questions heading into the 2022 cycle had been how Republican candidates would or not reflect the GOP base when it came to views of the 2020 election. Poll after poll has shown that a clear majority of Republicans falsely believe that President Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election.

    Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that a lot of Republicans running for office believe this as well. But could any of of those candidates end up running states where elections tend to be close? For the most part, the answer is no. Most election deniers running for governor have only a small chance of winning or are from states former President Donald Trump easily won.

    There is one big exception: GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake of Arizona. In the second-closest state of the 2020 presidential election, Lake is neck and neck with Democratic nominee Katie Hobbs.

    Three polls out this past week, which were all well within the margin of error, illustrate the point well. A CBS News/YouGov poll had Lake and Hobbs tied at 49%. Fox’s poll put Hobbs at 44% to Lake’s 43%. Marist College had Lake at 46% and Hobbs at 45%.

    These polls are representative of the average of all polling that has the candidates running basically even.

    Lake is running considerably stronger than Blake Masters, the the state’s GOP nominee for US Senate. Masters trails his Democratic opponent, Sen. Mark Kelly, by more than 5 points in in the average of all polling.

    You might be thinking that Masters is somehow more extreme than Lake. That’s not clear at all, at least when it comes to the 2020 election.

    On that issue, Lake – like Masters – is an election denier. Indeed, that’s what makes Lake so unique. There are other Republicans who are in a position to win the governorship of close 2020 states this year, and nearly all of them have either tried to have it both ways on the most recent presidential election (i.e. raising doubts about the legitimacy, but not saying it was stolen) or have accepted the 2020 results.

    The other full-out election deniers running for governor in 2020 swing states this year are Tudor Dixon in Michigan and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania. Both trail their Democratic opponents – Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, respectively – by double digits in the average of polls. Mastriano is now running well behind the Republican nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz, despite Oz stumbling out of the gate after the primary. (Oz, who was endorsed by Trump in the primary, said he would have voted to certify the 2020 election result.)

    In fact, 2020 election denial has been a hallmark of losing gubernatorial campaigns in swing or blue states. Blue-state Republicans Dan Cox in Maryland and Geoff Diehl in Massachusetts are getting blown out by their opponents in the polls, even though the current and departing governors of their respective states are Republicans.

    You might be tempted to think that Lake has a chance because voters in the Grand Canyon State believe the 2020 election was stolen. That does not appear to be the case. An August Fox poll found that only 28% of voters were not at all confident that votes in the 2020 election were cast legitimately and counted fairly.

    Additionally, the Marist poll showed that a mere 6% of voters are not at all confident that the 2022 election in Arizona will not be run fairly and accurately. Another 23% are not very confident; the vast majority (71%) are confident it will be.

    So what is Lake’s secret? Part of it may be that her past as a television anchor is paying off. She seems to be doing a good enough job reaching voters in the middle of the electorate.

    Lake needs merely to stay competitive with independents to win Arizona. Unlike many other battleground states, a plurality of Arizona voters are Republican. This means Democratic candidates usually need some mixture of winning more Republican voters than Republican candidates winning Democratic voters and winning independents by a wide margin. Put another way, Lake can win even if she loses independents and retains less of her base than Hobbs.

    In the Marist poll, for example, Kelly holds a 17-point lead with independents. Hobbs is up just 2 points among them.

    But Lake’s standing may have more to do with the fact that 2020 election denialism isn’t as much of an important factor to voters as we might think when it comes to voting in elections for state office. While just 18% of voters said in the CBS News poll that they wanted elected officials in Arizona to say Biden didn’t win in 2020, another 41% said it didn’t matter. This means the majority of Arizona voters (59%) don’t seem to mind or actually like it when someone running for office denies the reality of the 2020 election.

    A further look at the numbers indicates that the GOP could easily win the secretary of state races in Arizona (Mark Finchem) and in next-door Nevada (Joe Marchant). The Republicans running for both those posts have denied the results of the 2020 election as they aim to become the chief election officers in their given states.

    It’s also the case that Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson voted against certifying the 2020 election and is a slight favorite to win another term against Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. Likewise, Nevada’s Adam Laxalt has raised questions about the 2020 election and played a leading role in post-election legal efforts to reverse Biden’s victory in the state. He’s in a tight race with Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

    Neither of those GOP Senate candidates are vying to lead a swing state, though. And the name recognition for the aforementioned secretary of state candidates is significantly lower than it is for Lake.

    Lake is quite competitive as an election denier, despite being well known and running for a real position of power when it comes to elections. If she and Finchem win, the two officials in charge of election certification in Arizona will be on the record denying the reality of the 2020 election.

    That could be quite a big deal in two years’ time, if another close presidential election – like 2020’s between Biden and Trump – is on the line and Arizona is once again in the mix.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • The Radical Fringe That Just Went Mainstream in Arizona

    The Radical Fringe That Just Went Mainstream in Arizona

    [ad_1]

    It might be nice one day to wake up and feel serene—even hopeful—about the state of American politics. To know that all of those people who have been warning about the growing threat to democracy are way ahead of their skis. But today is not that day.

    Arizona Republicans are nominating an entire cast of characters who argue not only that Donald Trump won the election in 2020, but also that the state’s results should be decertified—a process for which there is no legal basis. These Trump-endorsed candidates—Kari Lake for governor, Mark Finchem for secretary of state, Abraham Hamadeh for attorney general, Blake Masters for senator—all won their respective primaries this week and are now one election away from political power.

    Read: The Kansas abortion shocker

    Some strategists might frame these Republican wins as a gift to Democrats, and you can look at it that way. Democrats will be more competitive in the upcoming midterms than they might have been if more reasonable Republicans were on the ballot. Moderates and independents abound in Arizona, and they aren’t going to be excited to vote for a passel of kooks. But that doesn’t change the simple fact that the fundamentals are on Republicans’ side this year: Joe Biden is still unpopular; inflation is still high; America might soon be entering a recession.

    “Nobody should be popping champagne,” Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist and the publisher of The Bulwark, told me. “This is the most antidemocracy slate of candidates in the country. We’re in a very dangerous situation.”

    “Stop the Steal” candidates are running—and winning—all over the country. But Arizona concentrates a lot of them within a single geographic area—like an ant farm of election deniers.

    Lake might prove the most significant of these candidates. Lake’s lead over her top Republican opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson, had grown to nearly 3 percent when the gubernatorial primary race was finally called in her favor on Thursday night. Before becoming an enthusiastic proponent of Trump’s election lies, Lake was a local TV-news anchor, making her a household name in Arizona and giving her something that many political candidates lack: confidence in front of the camera. Like Trump, Lake has a difficult-to-describe magnetism with Republican-base voters; they simply cannot get enough of her.

    Throughout her campaign, Lake has called Biden an “illegitimate president” and vowed that, if she becomes governor, she’ll be reviewing and decertifying Arizona’s 2020 election results—despite multiple audits (and even a partisan review) showing precisely zero evidence of widespread fraud. Even ahead of the primary, Lake claimed to have evidence of funny business; the NBC reporter Vaughn Hillyard tried to get Lake to share some of that evidence, but she would not. Lake and Finchem, the cowboy-hat-wearing would-be secretary of state whom I profiled last month, have been cooking up new ways supposedly to prevent fraud—by banning voting machines and early voting. Both Lake and Finchem primed voters to believe that, if they lost, only fraud would explain their losses. Of course they did. That’s the new Republican playbook, and these two know it better than anyone.

    Lake’s opponent in November, Katie Hobbs, is Arizona’s former secretary of state and a run-of-the-mill Democrat who will probably try to position herself as the sane, competent foil to Lake’s wild-eyed conspiracy monger. That’s a solid strategy—maybe the only one that can work. But Hobbs is so run-of-the-mill that she’s boring. And what Hobbs lacks in personality, she makes up for in baggage, after a former staffer successfully sued last year over discrimination. For Arizonans who are still fans of democracy, though, Hobbs is the obvious choice—an apt example of the “Terrible Candidate/Important Election” scenario that my colleague Caitlin Flanagan described this week.

    David A. Graham: Well, the cover-up sure isn’t making January 6 look any better

    Arizona Democrats like Hobbs do have a genuine shot at defeating this slate of extremists. The basic fact of these Republicans’ extremism makes all Democratic candidates look better by comparison. Many independent voters, who count for something like one-third of all Arizona voters, and moderate Republicans would probably have happily voted for any Republican but Lake; come November, some of them may be willing to turn that into any candidate but Lake. Plus, Democrats seem to have gotten their groove back in recent weeks. Lawmakers in Washington, D.C., reached a long-elusive deal on sweeping climate legislation; gas prices are dropping fast; and the overturning of Roe v. Wade might energize an otherwise sleepy set of Democratic voters just in time for the midterms.

    And yet. Despite what hopeful Democrats might tell you, Arizona isn’t a purple state; it’s more of a lightish red. And this year remains an excellent year for Republicans—probably the best chance for any Republican extremist to make it into elected office not just in Arizona, but anywhere in the country. “When the political party in power has a president running in the mid- or upper 30s and inflation is high and people are feeling recession-y?” Longwell said. “You’re in a danger point. You just are.”

    The danger of a Lake or Finchem election in November is pretty straightforward, as I’ve outlined in previous stories. State leaders can easily cast doubt on an election’s results if the outcome doesn’t suit them, and this entire slate of Arizona Republicans is clearly prepared to do that. Governors and secretaries of state can tinker with election procedures or propose absurd new requirements, such as having every voter reregister to vote, as the Republican gubernatorial nominee in Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, has suggested. What happens if the outcome of the 2024 presidential election comes down to a closely divided Arizona? What if such a pivotal state was run not by Democrats and Republicans who are loyal to the democratic process, but by conspiracy-drunk partisans who won’t stop until they see their candidate swearing on a Bible? There’s a reason Trump has endorsed this slate; he knows these candidates will be pulling for him no matter what.

    Maybe the most important thing to note is that whatever happens to these Trump sycophants in November, they’ve demonstrated that a not-insignificant number of Republican voters want them—the cream of the conspiracy crop—to lead their party. In Tuesday’s primary, Rusty Bowers, Arizona’s Republican speaker of the house who did not cooperate with attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, lost his State Senate race to an election denier. Lake, who has become a household name in Trumpworld and raked in campaign donations from across the country, will be well positioned, whatever the coming election result, to be a MAGA superstar.

    If you’re still tallying up Trump’s primary wins and losses as an indicator of his grip on the party, you’re missing the point. The man’s enduring legacy is figures like Lake and a GOP packed with cranks and conspiracy theorists. “They will be defining the next generation of Republicans, and [Lake] will be among the next generation of leaders,” Longwell said. “If she wins, or even if she loses.”

    [ad_2]

    Elaine Godfrey

    Source link