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There has been some media chatter lately that Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake is tacking to the middle to appeal to non-MAGA voters as she appears headed to sew up the Republican nomination.
According to reports, Lake has been doing things in recent months to either obscure or downplay her extremist stances. This has included publicly retreating from some of her statements staunchly opposing abortion rights and reproductive freedom, dismissing her cruel crusade against the late Arizona Sen. John McCain, and, it seemed, trying to paper over her cries of election fraud being the source of her failed gubernatorial bid in 2022.
But make no mistake: Lake is all-in on baseless election conspiracy theories heading into November. We know this because she, fellow failed Arizona candidate Mark Finchem (who ran for secretary of state in 2022) and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell asked the Supreme Court last week to hear an appeal over debunked claims that rigged vote tabulation machines cost the 2022 candidates their elections and may affect future races, as well. The suit absurdly seeks a “do-over” of the 2022 elections and a ban on all vote tabulation machines in the 2024 races.
To be crystal clear: These claims have been proved false in multiple federal courts, and as my colleague Steve Benen reported, Lake and Finchem’s lawyers have been sanctioned on multiple occasions for launching the failed legal challenges. But that's not stopping them. Lindell appeared on conservative commentator Steve Bannon’s podcast on Friday to reveal “new evidence” he’d been hyping as reason for the Supreme Court to consider the appeal. Unsurprisingly, this amounted to little more than a stream of unsubstantiated claims layered with conspiratorial tech jargon. Lindell insisted that vote tabulation machines rigged with doodads and whatchamacallits stole the elections from Lake and Finchem.
Columnist Laurie Roberts summed up the claims well for AZCentral:
Funny thing. The new evidence sounds pretty much like the same old Maricopa County-is-the-devil argument they’ve been making all along: altered software, faulty testing, coverups, the usual stuff the courts have rejected. Add now skullduggery apparently afoot at Dominion Voting Systems. According to the appeal, Dominion configured its tabulation machines in 30 states in such a way that hackers or Dominion workers intent on mischief can easily gain access to the count.
Note: Lindell is already facing a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems over accusations that he spread election lies about the company. Now, he's essentially reheated those baseless claims and served them up to the Supreme Court with Kari Lake as his sous chef.
Politically, it’s a high-risk, low-reward scenario.
In the off chance SCOTUS elects to hear the appeal, a ruling in Lake’s favor — after multiple court losses — seems even less likely. And Lake is taking a gamble by doubling down on her election denialism. In Arizona, candidates for statewide office lost high-profile races in 2022 after backing Donald Trump’s conspiratorial claims about election fraud. That includes Lake and Finchem, but also failed Senate candidate Blake Masters and attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh.
Lake had two options entering this campaign season: project normalcy by trying to run as a traditional conservative, or reveal her lunacy by doubling down on MAGA-fueled election lies.
She chose the latter option.