Kari Lake, a former news anchor who has embraced Donald Trump’s false claims that voter fraud cost him the 2020 election, has been projected to win the Republican nomination for governor of Arizona.
Lake campaigned on enacting many new election measures, including getting rid of vote-counting machines and banning voting by mail.
Edison Research and NBC News both projected Lake’s victory late on Thursday over Karrin Taylor Robson, who was endorsed by Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence.
Along with primary wins for Mark Finchem as Republican nominee for secretary of state and Abraham Hamadeh for state attorney general, Arizona, a key swing state, is now facing three election-denier candidates for its top positions overseeing the conduct of elections – including certifying the results.
According to NBC, Lake had 46.8% of the vote to Taylor Robson’s 44% with 90% of the expected vote counted.
Lake did not dispute the results of her own election victory. She said it showed that people “forgotten by the establishment just delivered a political earthquake”.
