Kari Lake digs in on 'rigged' election claims in court despite pivot in Senate campaign

Republican Kari Lake is attempting a rebrand as she ramps up her campaign for U.S. Senate, even as she continues to litigate her 2022 loss in Arizona's governor's race.

In recent weeks, the conservative firebrand has extended olive branches to Republicans she burned during her 2022 race for governor, in a bid to win the moderate bloc whose support could be crucial to her ongoing campaign. She has courted national GOP leaders to support her candidacy, receiving the backing of at least one top Republican lawmaker. 

And she has largely replaced her fierce insistence that the 2022 gubernatorial election was “rigged” against her — a claim which, for nearly a year, was the centerpiece of her political brand — for Republicans’ poll-tested messaging on issues such as border security and inflation.

Announcing her Senate campaign in a speech in early October, Lake discussed the issue of election integrity only obliquely.

"Fighting for honest elections is not a Republican issue. It's not a Democrat issue. It's an American issue," she said.

But while she moderates her language on the campaign trail, the former candidate for Arizona governor continues to contest her 2022 loss in court.

Last week, more than a year after her loss to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, Lake asked an Arizona appeals court to nullify the result of that election and hold a new one.

In the brief, Lake doubles down on her baseless claim that Maricopa County “apparently rigged the November 2022 Election to fail on Election Day” and argues that the court should reopen the issue because of new evidence.

Lake’s previous attempts to contest the election have been dismissed in court. 

Her efforts to sow doubt in Arizona’s elections were part of her rise on the national political scene. In the months after her 2022 election loss, she raised millions of dollars while appearing on a range of right-leaning media outlets. Less than a quarter of those donations came from Arizona, according to an analysis from the Arizona Mirror.

Reached for comment, Lake’s campaign said that “the media is obsessed with talking about the 2020 and 2022 election.” Lake has called to decertify the result of the 2020 election as recently as August.

“Kari Lake is not the first candidate for office to go through the courts to address election issues,” Lake campaign spokesperson Alex Nicoll said in a written statement to The Arizona Republic. The statement mentioned the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore, which settled a dispute over election procedures in Florida’s 2000 presidential election.

In that case, the losing candidate, Democrat Al Gore, accepted the Supreme Court's ruling and conceded defeat. Arizona's Supreme Court has dismissed Lake's election challenges, aside for one point related to voter signature verification. Lake is still appealing that point, which was sent back to a lower court, and then rejected, earlier this year.

The Lake campaign also highlighted a 2017 remark that Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., made to CNN saying that former President Donald Trump was “not a legitimate president, according to many people” because of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Gallego's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Prior to her campaign launch, Lake’s election denialism made some national Republicans skeptical of her candidacy.

According to a national Republican strategist, who is familiar with Lake’s relationships with national Republicans, GOP leaders have urged her not to continue to litigate the 2022 election and would prefer that she focus on her Senate run. 

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., the National Republican Senatorial Committee chair, recently told CNN: "I think one thing we've learned from 2022 is voters do not want to hear about grievances from the past."

Reach reporter Laura Gersony at laura.gersony@arizonarepublic.com or 480-372-0389. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @LauraGersony.