Kari Lake’s campaign declared its victory Wednesday afternoon, and said it never had a doubt Tuesday night that she would be the Republican nominee for governor of Arizona.
With 125,000 votes still left to be counted, the Lake campaign says it knows the outcome of the race.
We are confident that the outstanding votes left to be counted will favor @KariLake
We know what the outcome is.@KariLake is the @AZGOP nominee for Governor.
Why is the #FakeNews media afraid to call the race?
Some of them seemed very eager to call Arizona back in 2020.
— Kari Lake War Room (@KariLakeWarRoom) August 3, 2022
“We knew early in the night, despite a 9.8% deficit, that Kari Lake would be the Republican nominee,” Lake Chief Strategist Bill Grant told The Arizona Sun Times. “It’s time to unite Arizona and bring the Republican Party together to defeat Katie Hobbs in November.”
Lake currently leads challenger Karrin Taylor Robson by a 1.8 percent margin, according to RealClearPolitics.
Some on the political left, like Bloomberg writer Emma Kinery, appeared to be celebrating what they thought was Lake’s demise, as she was behind early on.
“! Kari Lake is down by 9 points in Arizona with 43.6% of the vote counted per AP Arizona GOP gubernatorial primary Karrin Taylor Robson 49.8% Kari Lake 40.6% Still a lot of votes to be counted / for that to change,” Kinery said.
! Kari Lake is down by 9 points in Arizona with 43.6% of the vote counted per AP
Arizona GOP gubernatorial primary
Karrin Taylor Robson 49.8%
Kari Lake 40.6%Still a lot of votes to be counted / for that to change
— Emma Kinery (@EmmaKinery) August 3, 2022
She posted more updates throughout the night as votes continued to be counted, but stopped providing updates when Lake secured the victory.
Lake is still lagging in the Arizona GOP gubernatorial primary
With 56.9% of the votes counted per AP
Karrin Taylor Robson: 49.3%
Kari Lake: 40.4%— Emma Kinery (@EmmaKinery) August 3, 2022
Lake’s campaign was confident in the days leading up to the election.
“We feel highly confident. Kari is working hard traveling to all corners of the state. We had a huge rally with over 1,000 people in Tucson last night. And last week five polls came out with Kari leading by double digits,” Grant told The Sun Times Monday. “Combined with Robson‘s private jet and state plane scandal, we couldn’t ask for a better last week of the campaign.”
Several polls showed a wide margin separating Lake and Robson.
Lake sent a warning shot Tuesday night to Democrat nominee and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in a Tweet.
“Get ready, [Katie Hobbs],” she said.
Get ready, @katiehobbs 😃
— Kari Lake for AZ Governor (@KariLake) August 3, 2022
If the race does in fact get called for Lake, she will square off against Hobbs in a bell-weather race that will help determine Trump’s influence over the Republican Party, and whether Arizona, which President Joe Biden won by a slim margin in 2020, is still in play for Republicans.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Kari Lake” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.