Donald Trump loves all the candidates he endorses, so long as they win.
But at Mar-a-Lago fundraisers and rallies for Republican candidates, one beneficiary of his political largesse is more likely to come up than others — Kari Lake.
Trump, aides say, has delighted in watching Lake’s rise, seeing echoes of his own. A former TV news anchor-turned-right-wing gubernatorial candidate in Arizona, she, like him, has delighted in sparring with the media and made repeated falsehoods about the 2020 election the centerpiece of her campaign. Her monomaniacal focus on that topic, in fact, has made even Trump himself blush.
“It doesn’t matter what you ask Kari Lake about – ‘How’s your family?’ And she's like, ‘The family’s fine but they’re never going to be great until we have free and fair elections,’” the former president has frequently recounted to donors, according to a source close to Trump’s political operation. “He was like, ‘You could ask her, how’s the weather?’ And she’ll turn it into the election. ‘Oh, the weather in Phoenix is OK, but you can never have great weather unless the election is fair.’”
Over the past year Lake has appeared with Trump at rallies and spotted at Mar-a-lago events. She is a favorite guest on conservative shows, although she appeared on Fox News only once during primetime hours. There has been so much buzz around Lake that it has led to speculation in her circles and among her right-wing fans that she could be on Trump’s short list for a potential running mate, should she ultimately become governor and he run again for president. Those familiar with Trump’s thinking say they’re unfamiliar with any such talk and speculation is painfully premature.
“Kari Lake is honored to have the support of President Trump,” said Lake campaign spokesperson Ross Trumble. “She is solely focused on defeating Katie Hobbs and advancing the Arizona First agenda.”
Lake formally secured her party’s nomination on Thursday after a tight primary fight. By Friday, at CPAC in Dallas, she was greeted like a rock star by the crowd of conservative activists.
“Kari Lake won this tough race in which was outspent 10-to-1 by sticking to the key, vital issue that the 2020 election in Arizona, and nationwide, was rigged and stolen,” said Boris Epshteyn, former special assistant to Trump in the White House who worked on the ground in Arizona challenging the election results. “Major reasons why Kari Lake is widely praised is that she has not deviated and she is not scared of the mainstream media, the Democrats, or the RINOs. Kari stuck to the main MAGA issue and she won.”
The rise of Lake’s status in Trump world isn’t just a testament to the power of the former president’s endorsement and the salience of 2020 election conspiracies in modern GOP politics. It also underscores Trump’s success in putting his imprint on governorships across the country.
While Trump has played a central role in pushing MAGA candidates in races for seats ranging from statehouse to U.S. Congress, he has been especially focused on governors. Allies and aides say he often felt stymied by Republican governors who he felt were unaligned with him while he was in the White House. He also views governors as critical to his potential political future, noting that much of the electoral infrastructure is under their domain.
That’s especially the case in swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, where Trump has felt he was swindled out of a win. In Pennsylvania, he endorsed Doug Mastriano, who has promoted the ex-president’s false claims of a stolen 2020 election, attended Trump’s rally and march to the Capitol on Jan. 6, and won the Republican nomination. In Michigan, Trump backed conservative commentator Tudor Dixon, who won the Republican primary for governor. Dixon said she believes Trump won the state in 2020 even though he lost to Biden by thousands of votes, and she has talked about her belief there were irregularities in the 2020 election — although she did not go as far as other Republicans in the state in saying the election was stolen.
In Arizona, Trump-endorsed Lake took on Karrin Taylor Robson, who was backed by former Vice President Mike Pence and outgoing Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, among others. While Robson spent $18 million, Lake spent just $3.8 million — and largely leaned on Trump’s endorsement and media appearances to get voter attention.
Trump was unable to dislodge incumbent Brian Kemp from the governor’s seat in Georgia, despite encouraging a primary campaign against him over his refusal to overturn the state’s 2020 election results. And Trump’s endorsed candidate in Nebraska, “stop the steal” rally attendee Charles Herbster, failed to win the primary there.
But the president has affected the GOP governor races elsewhere, like Maryland, where Trump’s preferred candidate Dan Cox beat out Kelly Schulz by double digits. Schulz was backed by more establishment Republicans while Cox called Pence a “traitor” for his actions on Jan. 6. And in Arkansas, Trump backed former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who won the GOP primary and is viewed as a shoe-in to replace Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a critic of Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6.
The elevation of GOP gubernatorial candidates who trumpet Trump’s lies about the election could have a profound impact on American democracy, political observers warn. Should Mastriano, Lake and Dixon end up in office, they’d be in critical positions to affect the course of the 2024 election. Had Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona gone to Trump in 2020, he would have won a second term.
But those candidates have to get elected into office first. And a host of Republican strategists have warned that they are deeply flawed in general election matchups, precisely because of their allegiance to the former president and the 2020 election lies.
“I think it’s a problem for Republicans in the general election. Voters in general want to look forward and not backwards,” said Mike DuHaime, a Republican strategist who ran Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential bid and Chris Christie’s 2016 run. “Even Republican voters who voted for Trump and may even agree with him on some level are focused on gas prices and inflation and they’re just not focused on the 2020 election. It’s over no matter what. For the Republican party it’s better off having the 2022 election and the 2024 election be a referendum on Biden and not Trump.”
Lake is among those who could end up riding high because of her closeness to Trump, only to find it doesn’t play among a larger electorate. Republicans in Arizona say she will have to reach beyond MAGA diehards and embrace moderates in the state if she is going to win against Democratic nominee Katie Hobbs, who serves as Arizona’s top election official and spent the past year fighting against Lake’s claims of election fraud.
After Biden narrowly won Arizona in the 2020 election, Trump and his allies went on a political crusade to litigate and try to overturn the results. Over the next year and a half a flurry of partisan election “audits,” conspiracy theories, and lawsuits made Arizona ground zero for efforts to sow doubts over the 2020 results. Many of the claims made by Trump and his allies turned out to be false. Just this week Arizona’s attorney general Mark Brnovich ruled that a claim from the Cyber Ninjas, the group that led one of the so-called “audits” in the state, purporting that almost 300 dead people voted in the election, was not true. Only one person on the Cyber Ninja list was deceased.
“Election denialism absolutely works in a Republican primary but when you go to the general election, it's incumbent upon Kari to reach out to both the Republicans who didn't vote for her and the independents or Democratic voters who are upset with the direction of the country,” said Barrett Marson, an Arizona-based Republican strategist. “Yeah it plays in the primary, but I don’t know if it will play in the general election. Trump did lose Arizona.”
After her primary win, Lake met with Republican Governors Association officials about working to support her through the general election. The RGA, which helps GOP candidates across the country, is currently chaired by outgoing Arizona governor Ducey, who backed Robson in the primary.
“The RGA congratulates Kari on her primary victory, and we look forward to working to get her elected governor this November,” said RGA Vice Chair Kim Reynolds in a statement.
On the day after Tuesday’s primary election, before results had been called, Lake was asked by NBC News if she had a message to the establishment Republicans, including Pence and Ducey, who she excoriated in personal ways.
“I want to bring the Republican party together. We’re one big happy-sometimes, sometimes dysfunctional family, but we can come together,” Lake said. “I want to bring folks together.”
But at that press conference, she went back to talking about unsubstantiated claims of fraud.
"We have a lot of evidence of irregularities and problems, and we’re going to address those. I’m not going to release them to the fake news,” Lake said.
