Kari Lake and Arizona Republicans are Doubling Down on White Nationalist Rhetoric After it Failed to Deliver in ‘22

If the 2022 midterm results showed one thing in Arizona, it was that the GOP’s massive investment in ugly and dangerous nativism didn’t pay off at the ballot box. All three GOP candidates were defeated in three of the biggest races – gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, and state Secretary of State. While their radical ideas and nativist demagoguery may have appealed to MAGA primary voters, they alienated Latinos and other general election voters who provided crucial margins for Arizona Democrats in key races. The ballot measure opening in-state tuition to undocumented students won more votes than Blake Masters, an anti-immigrant weirdo and the failed GOP nominee for Senate. But were lessons learned? Nope.

Kari Lake, the GOP gubernatorial nominee from 2022, has dusted off her failed playbook of anti-immigrant demonization and embrace of deadly white nationalist conspiracy theories in her bid to replace retiring Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema. She’s running against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, a U.S. military veteran who has leaned in on a both/and immigration approach supported by the vast majority of Americans. This solution combines border management with a pathway to legalization for long-settled immigrants, including DACA recipients. “The Dreamers I spoke with last night are hardworking young people who want nothing more than to continue to give back to the country they call home,” he said following one “Dreamer Dinner” in 2017.

Lake, meanwhile, has made the deadly white nationalist conspiracy about a so-called “migrant invasion” the centerpiece of both her campaigns. In 2022, she ran ads that promised to declare war on migrants on day one. Despite her previous loss using this same exact model, she hasn’t changed much of anything in her race against Gallego. Her focus in the attack ads has been to push a great replacement theory lie about immigrants polluting the ballot box.   

LAKE CONTINUES WHITE NATIONALIST ‘INVASION’ LIE

Lake has made deadly white nationalist conspiracy theory a centerpiece of her campaigns, platforming the same “invasion” lie linked to numerous racist mass killers in her advertising, social media platforms, and political speeches beginning with her failed gubernatorial bid against Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in 2022.

In one example from February of that year, an infuriated Lake blasted AZ Central for refusing to reprint her op-ed unless she removed her incendiary “invasion” rhetoric, America’s Voice Senior Research Director Zachary Mueller noted at the time. “I said Never!” Lake tweeted. But just months later, a racist mass gunman motivated by this same white nationalist rhetoric traveled to a Buffalo grocery store to target Black Americans, murdering ten people and leaving a community shattered. This same white nationalist conspiracy theory has been tied to mass terror attacks at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 and at an El Paso Walmart the following year.

Despite this horrific body count, Lake remains gripped by this fictitious, racist, and antisemitic replacement theory as she now battles Gallego in the critical race to replace Sinema.

In March of this year, Lake used a national CNN interview to falsely claim that Gallego “wants to give nine to twelve million people who poured in illegally who have invaded our country the ability to vote, he wants them all to vote.” She continued to promote this fiction in state advertising in May and then to national audiences at the Republican National Convention in August, where she claimed that the congressman voted “to let the millions of people who poured into our country illegally cast a ballot in this upcoming election” (a lie) and that President Biden is intentionally facilitating a “Bidenvasion” (yet another lie). Lake’s rhetoric has also been cited in a new report from The Washington Post on “misleading ads” about immigration and the border.

Lake’s convention garbage “was a made-for-MAGA moment — certainly not the stuff of a candidate who desperately needs to figure out a way to appeal to those McCain Republicans and independents she spent three years savaging,” commented Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts.

LAKE STILL REFUSES TO ADMIT SHE LOST HER 2022 ELECTION

Despite losing the 2022 gubernatorial race to Hobbs, Lake mimicked the failed tactics of her Dear Leader by not only refusing to concede the race, but also launching a series of ridiculous lawsuits disputing the results. “She’s been unsuccessfully fighting the loss in court ever since, but has lost at every turn, in the trial and appeals courts, as well as in front of the Arizona Supreme Court,” AZ Mirror reported in June. In April, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear her case.

And while right-wing weirdos will lie about anything and everything, including about the hair on top of their heads, normal people know that lying is a bad thing and that lying in court is especially a bad thing. Yet that’s exactly what Lake’s lawyers did in Arizona’s highest court, which imposed thousands of dollars in sanctions against the disgraced attorneys.

“They’re both accused of submitting information they knew was false to the Arizona Supreme Court,” AZ Mirror reported. “During the appeals of Lake’s election challenges, they told the court that it was ‘an undisputed fact’ that more than 35,000 illegal ballots were inserted into the count in the 2022 general election in Maricopa County.” Bryan Blehm, a divorce attorney who represented Lake beginning in December 2022, even had his suspended for two months for lying on her behalf. “In its 12-page order, the panel acknowledged that Blehm had violated ethical rules by submitting false statements and jeopardized the reputation of the entire legal process,” AZ Mirror said.

When it comes to Lake, the delusion remains strong, at one point proclaiming herself the true leader of the state. “I am the lawful governor of Arizona,” she wrote in her 2023 book. “The current occupant of the Governor’s Office is just a squatter.” Is the lawful governor of Arizona in the room with us, Kari?

AND SHE’S GOT SOME PRETTY EXTREME FRIENDS

Some folks get by with a little help from their friends, and others spread bonkers conspiracy theories with a little help from their friends. Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, a key figure around the disturbing far-right “constitutional sheriff” movement, election denier, and Jan. 6 insurrection apologist, cut a 2022 ad for Lake using hyperbolic language claiming that Arizona “is under attack.”

“Earlier in an August endorsement of the Lake campaign, Lamb was explicit that Lake’s adoption of the white nationalist ‘invasion’ conspiracy was key to his support,” Mueller wrote, “noting her ‘plan would declare an invasion at the Southern Border.’” Lamb was also among the noxious figures featured in one of the most disturbing and violent campaign ads in recent memory. That infamous ad starred failed Arizona GOP candidate Jim Lamon, who shot at actors representing President Joe Biden, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Sen. Mark Kelly. Kelly’s wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, survived a brutal assassination attempt in 2011. But Lamon, who would later face criminal indictment as one Arizona’s fake electors in the 2020 election, instead reveled in the outrage, tweeting he “might single handedly solve the Arizona drought with all the snowflakes that are melting over my Super Bowl ad.” Later that year, a far-right conspiracy theorist brutally attacked Pelosi’s husband. The attempted assassin has since been sentenced to 30 years in prison. 

Meanwhile, Lamb is a leader in the fringe “constitutional sheriffs” movement that believes he and other sheriffs have greater authority than the federal government. “Lamb has close ties to the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA),” Mueller continued. “Richard Mack, who founded CSPOA in 2011, was on the board of Oath Keepers, whose founder, Stewart Rhodes was found guilty of seditious conspiracy for his involvement in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6.” 

Lamb has also downplayed the violent coup attempt and the attack on the US Capitol building on January 6, calling the insurrectionists who beat up cops “very loving, Christian people” who “just happen to support President Trump a lot.” One of those officers, U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant, U.S. military veteran, and naturalized U.S. citizen Aquilino Gonell, later testified that insurrectionists told him, “You’re not even an American.”

ALL EYES ON ARIZONA

While much of the national reporting has focused on this critical Senate race, local and statewide races that will dictate the everyday lives of working Arizonans, including many immigrants, are also garnering attention. In fact, control of the state’s legislature is at play for the first time in decades, buoyed by recent attacks taking women’s reproductive health back to 1864. Republicans currently control the Arizona State Senate by a margin of 16-14 and the House of Representatives by a margin of 31-29. Politico recently reported, “Democrats see a chance to flip both.” That effort is led by the Arizona Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. And, the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia rates both chambers as toss-ups.  

These races will be key as Arizona voters will also go to the polls to vote on a ballot measure that risks the freedom and liberties of all Arizonans of color regardless of legal immigration status. Proposition 314 was placed on the ballot by the GOP controlled State Senate and House of Representatives, bypassing the normal legislative process because any similar extreme legislation would have undoubtedly been vetoed by Governor Hobbs. It includes provisions that would purport to give local police the authority to arrest and detain anyone they suspect to be undocumented.

The proposals harken to the notorious S.B. 1070, large parts of which were later found unconstitutional by the courts. When then-Gov. Jan Brewer signed the “show me your papers” bill into law, a reporter grilled her on exactly how local police – which at the time were under federal investigation for civil rights abuses against communities of color – would determine if someone was in the state legally. “Please explain what criteria will be used to determine if someone is an illegal immigrant?” the reporter asked. “What does an illegal immigrant look like?” 

“I do not know,” an exasperated Brewer replied (this was actually quite common for her). The response meant any person who isn’t white was at risk, and proved that Brewer knew the “bill relies on racial profiling to target people of color and immigrant communities,” Colorlines reported. That’s now what Arizona Republicans want voters to decide in November. Freedom is indeed on the ballot – from the national races on down to the states.