Kari Lake Reveals Plans After Arizona Certifies Midterm Election Results

The Republican nominee for governor of Arizona, Kari Lake, speaks at Arizona First Rally in Phoenix, Arizona on Nov. 3, 2022. NTD

Republican candidate Kari Lake indicated that she won’t concede anytime soon even after Arizona officials certified the state’s Nov. 8 midterm results in favor of Democrat governor-elect Katie Hobbs.

“We’re going to start fighting back, and we’re going to be drawing up some lawsuits in our elections … we have too much to save in this country,” Lake, who officials say lost to Hobbs by about 17,000 votes, wrote on Twitter.

Previously, Lake said she would file an election-related lawsuit against Maricopa County after officials there confirmed on Nov. 8 that there were vote-tabulation issues. Voters also complained to the Arizona Attorney General’s election division, which sent a letter demanding information from Maricopa County.

The county had a number of technological challenges across different polling locations, resulting in long lines and confusion among voters at some voting sites. On Nov. 8, Maricopa officials told voters to place their ballots in dropboxes, and they said later that voters were not disenfranchised.

“We’re ready to go with what we believe to be an exceptional lawsuit. And we believe we will be victorious in that lawsuit,” Lake told WarRoom on Monday. “We'll take it all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to. We will not stop fighting. Because the people of Arizona were disenfranchised.”

Lake added that “it’s going to be real ugly.”

Weeks after the Nov. 8 midterms, Lake filed a lawsuit seeking information to “cough up some of the public documentation we need for our bigger lawsuit,” she told Just the News at the time.

During a court hearing on Dec. 3, a Maricopa County official told a judge that Lake’s suit should be thrown out because the state would certify the results. Deputy County Attorney Joseph Branco told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney that while Lake is entitled to see that information, she has to wait.

“County agencies receive requests from inmates who believe that the records they are going to receive will lead to their liberty,” he said, according to local media reports.

Arizona Secretary of State and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs speaks at a press conference calling for abortion rights outside the Evo A. DeConcini Courthouse in Tucson, Arizona, on Oct. 7, 2022. Mario Tama/Getty Images

But an attorney for Lake, Tim La Sota, told the judge that the former television host’s team needs the records quickly due to the pending certification deadline.

“This information loses not all of its value but a lot of its value in an election context pretty quickly,” he said, reported Tuscon.com. At the same time, La Sota alleged that Maricopa County’s inability or unwillingness to provide records within days of Lake’s request is illegal.

Other than Lake, Republican Abe Hamadeh is expected to file a challenge as well. Both Lake and Hamadeh were backed by former President Donald Trump.

Blake Masters, who lost his challenge against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), is the only statewide Republican candidate to have conceded. Masters called on the GOP to adopt an early-voting strategy after midterm losses.

Certification

On Monday, election officials, including Hobbs, certified the midterm results during a ceremony.

“Arizona had a successful election, but too often throughout the process, powerful voices proliferated misinformation that threatened to disenfranchise voters,” Hobbs, the current secretary of state and now governor-elect, said during the event, without mentioning Lake or other Republicans.

“Democracy prevailed, but it’s not out of the woods. … 2024 will bring a host of challenges from the election denial community that we must prepare for, but for now, Arizonans stand proud knowing that this election was conducted with transparency, accuracy, and fairness in accordance with Arizona’s election laws and procedures,” she said.

Other Details

Last month, Hobbs filed a lawsuit against Cochise County for refusing to certify the results of the election. County officials had said that they were delaying the vote until it reviewed information about the election.

“Cochise County had a statutory duty to certify the results of the 2022 General Election by today. My office has filed a lawsuit to ensure all voters have their votes counted,” Hobbs wrote on Twitter at the time.

“We’re drawing up lawsuits because we won’t have elections like they have in third-world countries,” Lake told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson on Monday evening, hours after state officials certified the results.

Ultimately, following a court order, authorities in Cochise County voted to certify the results last week and said if they did not certify, they could face criminal charges. Reports indicated that if the Republican-dominated county did not certify its result, it could flip Arizona’s 6th Congressional District from Republican to Democrat.