Kari Lake, an ally of former President Donald Trump and one of the Republican Party’s most prominent election deniers, on Tuesday launched her 2024 bid for Senate from Arizona.
Lake is vying for the seat held by independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who shed her Democratic Party affiliation in December and has not yet said whether she will seek a second term. Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego is also a candidate in what could become an unpredictable, three-way race.
“I am not going to retreat. I’m gonna stand on top of this hill with every single one of you, and I know you’re by my side as I formally announce my candidacy for the United States Senate,” Lake told a crowd of supporters.
Midway through her speech, Lake tossed to a pre-taped video of Trump, who said she had his endorsement.
A former Arizona television journalist, Lake has built her political image – and her 2022 campaign for governor – around her support for Trump’s false claims about extensive election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. She has become a fixture in the former president’s orbit since losing her gubernatorial bid.
She has also claimed, without evidence, that she won her election last fall against Democrat Katie Hobbs, the state’s current governor. Lake has lost a series of legal battles seeking to overturn the result of that contest, which she lost by more than 17,000 votes.
Lake had already filed paperwork to enter the Senate race before officially announcing her campaign Tuesday in Scottsdale. Last week, she met with several GOP senators in Washington, a source familiar with the meetings said, including Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John Cornyn of Texas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
“We have had productive conversations with Kari Lake and her team. She is a talented campaigner with an impressive ability to fire up the…
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