Kari Lake has created a 'recipe for disaster' in her own state
Arizona has become a hotbed of election conspiracy theories as it has become a hotly contested swing state thanks to a confluence of factors.
Donald Trump falsely blamed fraud for his loss to Joe Biden in the former Republican stronghold, and so did his ally Kari Lake when she lost her race for governor, and the state's changing political demographics, combined with persistent misinformation that gets little pushback from prominent Republicans, has turned Arizona into a hub of debunked election fraud claims, reported the New York Times.
“You put that all together, and it’s a recipe for disaster,” said Joshua Garland, interim director of the Center on Narratives, Disinformation and Strategic Influence at Arizona State University. “Once you latch onto a narrative or worldview, anything that supports or facilitates that worldview or narrative you’re much more likely to accept.”
Those fraud claims have fueled threats and harassment against officials who administer elections, Gary Restaino, the U.S. attorney for Arizona, said seven of roughly 18 federal cases involving election threats had targeted Arizona officials, although the suspects came from out of state.
READ MORE: Meet the Republican deadbeat dads
“We unfortunately are a leader in that,” Restaino said. “We expect that we are going to remain in the cross hairs, so to speak, of these threats, given that Arizona will remain a battleground state.”
Maricopa County recorder Stephen Richer has sued Lake, who is now running for the U.S. Senate, for defamation over her unfounded claims that he helped rig the 2022 governor's race against her, and the failed gubernatorial candidate's lawyers indicated Tuesday that she would not dispute the facts in that lawsuit – but that hasn't stopped her from framing the case as a "political witch hunt."
“We’ve all seen how they’re doing it to President Trump, and here in Arizona, they’re doing the exact same thing to me,” Lake said in a video posted to X. “I won’t be taking part. Even if they leave me, my husband and children homeless and penniless, that won’t stop us. We will continue to fight for Arizona.”
Richer, who's also a Republican, said he gets called a traitor nearly every day from apparent Trump or Lake supporters, and said he would seek "millions" of dollars in damages from her.
"That means that the 2022 gubernatorial candidate is going to have a judgment entered into a court of law that she lied about the 2022 election,” Richer said. “I set out on this course to put an end to those defamatory statements and to begin the repairing of my reputation, and so we take a step forward on those goals today.”
Two Republican members of the Maricopa County board of supervisors, which oversees the county's elections, have decided not to seek re-election this year due to the vitriol and threats they face, including a recent outburst at a board meeting that forced them to call authorities to restore order and implement new security measures.
“Every day, if I just tweet, ‘I had a ham sandwich,’ the replies just pour in like, ‘You’re a traitor,’ ‘We’re going to hang you, ‘Your time is coming,’” said one of those retiring supervisors, Bill Gates. “It’s just constant.”