In politics, there are no second acts. Enter Kari Lake.
Among Arizona Republicans, Kari Lake needs little introduction. So, at a recent state party meeting, the outgoing chairwoman, Kelli Ward, keeps it simple.
“Our real governor!” she declares.
Ms. Lake, wearing a red frilled blouse, lavender-gray pants, and black stilettos, takes the stage at a Phoenix megachurch to thunderous applause and cheers. She briefly basks in the acclaim before launching into a quick-fire speech about election fraud, former President Donald Trump – she just got off the phone with him, and he “loves Arizona” – and the rally she’s holding the next day where she will talk about, once again, election fraud.
“People are watching what’s happening in Arizona,” she says. “They saw it in broad daylight as our elections were stolen right in front of our eyes.”
Ms. Lake, who lost the governorship by a whisker to Democrat Katie Hobbs in November, says she’s fighting in court to reverse the results and get to work fixing “our corrupt elections.”
That court case – which she already lost and is pursuing on appeal – is “going really, really well,” she tells the 1,000-plus crowd. On Feb. 16, the Arizona Court of Appeals also ruled against Ms. Lake, declining to force out Governor Hobbs and declare a new election. Ms. Lake immediately vowed to take her case to Arizona’s Supreme Court.
Nearly three months after her defeat, Ms. Lake is still at the first stage of grief: denial. There’s also anger, the second stage, which she will uncork at the rally, but today it’s all denial. Denial of Arizona’s election procedures, vote tallies, and official audits. Denial that the Trump-endorsed slate of candidates she led in November lost. Denial of the legitimacy of Ms. Hobbs and other elected Democrats, whom she calls “frauds who took over our state government.”
Less explicitly stated, but just as clear, is her denial of the fact that many leaders in her own party are eager to turn the page on candidates like her. One of the clearest messages to emerge from the 2022 elections was voters’ rejection of politicians who echoed former President Donald Trump’s false claims of electoral fraud. Many moderate and independent voters saw the GOP as “sort of nasty and tended towards chaos,” Sen. Mitch McConnell . The solution, the Republican
