It’s on to November in Arizona.
On Tuesday night, the Associated Press confirmed that Kari Lake, the former Phoenix news anchor who previously lost her race for Arizona governor in 2020, will be the nominee for Republicans in the Senate general election contest, after defeating her primary opponent, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb:
PHOENIX (AP) — Kari Lake won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Arizona on Tuesday, setting up a fierce battle against Democratic U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego for a seat that could be crucial to deciding Senate control.
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The primary will give insights about where the narrowly divided state is headed going into the final sprint of the 2024 election, when Arizona is central to the fight for control of the White House and Congress.
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“Go vote,” Trump urged supporters in a telephone rally with Lake on Monday evening. “She’s fantastic. She will not let us down. Kari Lake, I just think she’s going to be as good as you can get. There’s nobody going to be better.”
On the Democrat side of the primary, unsurprisingly, Rep. Ruben Gallego handily took the nomination (as AP noted in the story linked above, he ran unopposed). Gallego jumped in the election as a challenger from the left to incumbent Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I), who–it appears–was pushed out of running for reelection by progressive activists in the Copper State. Sinema changed her party affiliation to Independent after voting “nay” and helping the Democrats’ prized fillibuster bill go down to defeat, although she continued to caucus with the Dems.
Just moments before AP called the race in her favor, Lake posted a message showing her gratitude to followers on X; the post appears to introduce a new slogan for the general election race–Make Arizona Grand Again–a state-centric play on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s famous catchphrase.
Thank you for putting your faith in me, Arizona.
I won’t let you down.
Together, we’re going to save this state.
Together, we’re going to #MakeArizonaGrandAgain. pic.twitter.com/eW0Q9TTFVV
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) July 31, 2024
Shortly after that, she addressed supporters gathered at a campaign gathering in Phoenix, officially accepting the Republican nomination:
Arizona,
I stand before you today to officially accept your nomination as the Republican candidate for the United States Senate from the great state of Arizona! pic.twitter.com/XuaRHFJzob
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) July 31, 2024
The new GOP Senate nominee also spoke graciously about the losing candidate, Lamb, whom she called “[her] friend”:
.@sherifflamb1 was never an opponent. He’s my friend.
I truly appreciate everything he’s given to Arizona, and I know he’s not done fighting for it. He’s not done protecting it.
He ran a great campaign, and I look forward to working together with him in the future. pic.twitter.com/qdf1oFuPFo
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) July 31, 2024
Ballots are still arriving to be counted at the time of this writing, but it’s pretty easy to see why AP called the race so quickly, as local ABC affiliate politics reporter, Garrett Archer showed:
First results Maricopa:
Kari Lake: 53%
Mark Lamb 40%309k ballots.
— The AZ – abc15 – Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) July 31, 2024
As this is a breaking story, RedState will provide updates as they become available.
UPDATE: In the most recent drop of counted ballots earlier in the 10 p.m. MST hour, Archer reported that “Apache [County] just dropped 2,828 ballots,” putting the tally at:
Lake 57
Lamb 39
As he noted, “She added another 226 to her net.”
