Arizona’s Kari Lake to Challenge Sinema in Heated Senate Race

Kari Lake, former TV host and gubernatorial hopeful, has announced that she is launching a bid to challenge Democratic Independent U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema is set to face off in what will be one of 2024’s biggest spectacles.

Lake revealed in an exclusive statement for the Wall Street Journal that her campaign will kick off at a rally on October 10, 2010. Lake had hinted that she would run before.

In an interview with The Paper, Lake stated, “We need to get in there a Senator who will fight back and put America First.”

More via the WSJ:

Arizona will be a major battleground for the presidential and Senate races next year. The combined campaign expenditure in the state is expected to reach hundreds of millions. In the last few cycles, voters in Arizona have narrowly voted for Democrats to be president, governor, and Senate after moderate Republicans, independents, and former President Donald Trump, and his GOP allies including Lake, shifted away.

Lake was the focus of the nation during her gubernatorial race last year. She aligned closely with Trump, and she enjoyed attacking the media, her critics, and Republicans who disagreed with Trump’s politics, such as the late Sen. John McCain.

Lake also believes that Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential election and her 2022 gubernatorial elections were stolen. She has been an outspoken supporter of Trump since his campaign began, which led to speculations that she was also angling for the vice presidential nomination from the real-estate mogul.

Sinema’s re-election campaign hasn’t been officially announced, but The Wall Street Journal points out that Sinema and her team have been laying the foundation for a third-party bid. Ruben Gallego is the Democratic candidate running against Sinema.

Since Joe Biden became president, the current senator has consistently voted against the extreme left in favor of a slightly more neutral position. She and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin have both been criticized by their own party for not voting in accordance with extreme leftist positions.

Lake has traveled the country selling books to raise money for her legal battles with the state of Arizona. She claims that fraud and deception caused her opponent to win the 2022 election. Blake Masters, a former candidate for the U.S. Senate from Arizona in 2022 who lost his bid to Lake was also reported to be contacted by former president Trump and asked to sit in her place.

Masters, according to reports, is still considering a presidential run. However, he put off his plans at Trump’s request.

Sen. Steve Daines, of Montana, who assumed control of the National Republican Senatorial Committee following the disastrous campaign of Sen. Rick Scott, of Florida, described Lake as “a talented candidate with an impressive capacity to ignite the grassroots.”

The NRSC does not appear to be ruling out an endorsement but hasn’t made one. Mitch McConnell has not commented on the race, despite having a large network of donors and political committees.