Burning Lake Of Fire, Con't

Perennial loser Kari Lake is trying to win Arizona's three-way US Senate race by promising she won't support a national abortion ban, and that's not going over well with the Republicans who are expected to give her an easy primary win. She's not alone by any means in backstabbing her MAGA base when it comes to an untenable position against abortion in the general election stage, either.

Kari Lake campaigned for governor of Arizona last year as a fierce ally of former President Donald J. Trump who was in lock step with her party’s right-wing base, calling abortion the “ultimate sin” and supporting the state’s Civil War-era restrictions on the procedure.

This week, she made a remarkable shift on the issue as she opened her bid for the U.S. Senate: She declared her opposition to a federal ban.

“Republicans allowed Democrats to define them on abortion,” Ms. Lake said in a statement to The New York Times about her break from the policy prescription favored by many anti-abortion groups and most of her party’s presidential contenders. She added that she supported additional resources for pregnant women, and that “just like President Trump, I believe this issue of abortion should be left to the states.”

The maneuvering by Ms. Lake, along with similar adjustments by Republican Senate candidates in Pennsylvania and Michigan, is part of a broader strategic effort in her party to recalibrate on an issue that has become a political albatross in battleground states and beyond.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, eliminating federal protections for abortion rights and handing Republicans one of their most significant policy victories in a generation, voters have turned out repeatedly to support abortion rights, even in red states.

The campaign arm for Senate Republicans, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is now coaching candidates to take the same tack as Ms. Lake — that is, clearly state their opposition to a national abortion ban, according to people familiar with the new strategy.

The group has also urged candidates to state their support for “reasonable limits” on late-term abortions with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, the people said. Rather than trying to avoid the topic, like many candidates did last year, it is advising Republicans to go on offense.

Senate Republicans were briefed last month on detailed research commissioned by One Nation, a nonprofit group aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, showing that many Americans equated the term “pro-life” — traditionally used by Republicans — with support for a total ban on abortion without any exceptions.

The research also showed that while voters opposed the idea of a total ban, there was wider support for restrictions after 12 to 15 weeks of pregnancy, particularly with exceptions for rape, incest and the life or health of the mother.

The nonprofit has suggested that Republicans communicate their views on abortion with empathy and compassion. Steven Law, who is the president of One Nation, is also the president of the Senate Leadership Fund, which has spent more than $1 billion on federal campaigns since 2016.

Whether or not Republican candidates for Congress — and the White House — can persuade voters that they have become more moderate on abortion promises to be one of the central questions of the 2024 elections.

“Voters have repeatedly rejected Republican politicians for supporting dangerous policies that deny a woman’s right to access abortion,” Sarah Guggenheimer, the spokesperson for the Senate Majority political action committee dedicated to electing Democratic candidates. “This cynical effort by Mitch McConnell and Republican candidates to mask their positions won’t change that.”

 

The problem of course is that the MAGA chuds aren't going to accept anything less than a permanent national abortion ban that jails half the population, including doctors, nurses and activists. The even bigger problem is even the "compromise" position still gives control of wombs and the folks that have them to the state. 

Democrats are right that this is a cynical ploy, and fewer and fewer voters are going to buy it.

Burning Lake Of Fire, Con't

Arizona Republican and professional election denier Lari Lake is stepping in to the 2024 US Senate race against Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, and the primary field just got a whole lot more interesting.

 

Former Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake is staffing up for a Senate campaign in anticipation of an October launch, making Arizona ground zero to replay — and relitigate — GOP losses in the last two elections.

Why it matters: A potential three-way battle, with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema running as an independent, will expose deep divisions in both parties on whether to appeal to their bases or independents in a critical 2024 battleground state.The race will have implications in the presidential campaign and give President Biden an opportunity to run against the "ultra MAGA" mindset that Lake represents, even if former President Trump isn't Biden's opponent in November 2024.

Lake, who has not conceded her gubernatorial loss in 2022, is one of Trump's most ardent defenders and frequently amplifies the false election claims at the heart of the former president's most recent indictment.

Between the lines: The race also offers a state-level experiment on the implication of a possible three-way presidential contest, with Sinema playing the role of a No Labels candidate.

Driving the news: Lake is expected to spend most of September in Arizona interviewing potential staff and consultants, a source familiar told Axios.The former TV news anchor has hit the campaign trail with Ohio GOP Senate candidate Bernie Moreno in recent days, drawing a crowd of more than 650 people in a rural area.

"I'm really, really excited about [Sen. J.D. Vance], I'm super excited that Bernie Moreno's going to be in the Senate. And if they're in the Senate, I just might have to join them," she said during a Monday fundraiser in Cleveland with Vance and Moreno.

What they're saying: "When President Trump gets back in the White House he's going to need fighters like Kari Lake in Washington, DC to help enact his Agenda 47," Caroline Wren, a senior adviser to Lake, told Axios. "Kari Lake is seriously considering a run for the United States Senate and will be making a final decision this fall."

 

We'll see if Lake entering the race makes it easier to split the Democratic vote, but as awful as Sinema's poll numbers are right now, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego could benefit greatly.

Voters were presented with a potential list of candidates for the 2024 Republican U.S. Senate Primary. A plurality of Republican state primary voters, 42%, support former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. Eleven percent support Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, 7% support former Senate candidate Blake Masters, 2% support Brian Wright and Jim Lamon respectively. Twenty-eight percent are undecided.

In the Democratic US Senate Primary, a plurality of Democratic primary voters (48%) plan to support Rep. Ruben Gallego, while 40% are undecided.

In a head-to-head matchup between Gallego (D), independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema, and Mark Lamb (R), 36% support Gallego, 29% support Lamb, 21% support Sinema, and 15% are undecided. Without Sinema on the ballot, 42% support both Gallego and Lamb, while 16% are undecided.

In the same two ballot tests with Brian Wright, 37% support Gallego, 26% support Sinema, and 25% Wright, and 12% are undecided. Without Sinema on the ballot, 41% support Gallego, 38% Wright, and 21% are undecided.

“It appears Senator Sinema pulls more support from Republican voters than Democrats on the ballot. About 21% of Republicans would vote for Sinema with Lamb on the ballot, and 34% of Republicans would support Sinema with Wright on the ballot,” Kimball said. “By contrast, Sinema only pulls about 8% of Democratic support from Gallego.” 

 

 I'll take a Gallego win any day of the week here.

Last Call For Lake Of Fire

Professional Republican election loser and perpetual victim Kari Lake is failing upwards to bigger and better things as she runs for Trump's VP in 2024 in Iowa, and she just might be the performative clown Trump's looking for in a running mate.

 

For two days, Kari Lake traversed this state with a clear message. She falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. She baselessly insisted that votes were rigged against her in her run for Arizona governor last year. And she warned without evidence that future races will be compromised.

“If you lose, lose with dignity. You shake the other person’s hand and walk away,” she told a crowd of approximately 200 at a reception hall on Friday, describing advice from her father on how to gracefully accept defeat. “I didn’t lose, so I’m not doing that.”

Lake, who lost in November by more than 17,000 votes to now-Gov. Katie Hobbs (D), is waging a new campaign without conceding the last one. The former television news anchor is traveling the country as one of the most vocal standard-bearers of an animated if wounded election denialism movement as she weighs a run for U.S. Senate and hears encouragement from some to set her sights on national office.

That movement has persisted in some quarters of the Republican Party despite candidates such as Lake experiencing pivotal losses in last year’s midterms after running openly on denying the results of the 2020 election. During a pair of stops Friday and Saturday in Iowa, Lake drew enthusiastic crowds here and in Ankeny. She walked onstage to Lenny Kravitz’s “American Woman.” She shook hands with supporters. She signed autographs. When an audience member here shouted, “Trump VP!,” Lake giggled at the outburst and repeated it.

“Trump VP,” Lake said, speaking of the former president, who in his third run for the White House has continued to make false claims about his 2020 election defeat. “I love President Trump. I will do everything in my power to get that man elected.”

Yet not everyone who came to see Lake was keen to hear her rehash past elections, and others in the party have been sharply critical of her rhetoric, seeing her as a part of a Trump-era scourge at the ballot box that cost the GOP winnable races last fall and could doom its chances in 2024. Her trip to this early presidential nominating state underlined tensions in the party between those who want to move away from the cause and others determined to keep it alive. 

Dwain Swanson, 88, said he has watched Lake’s interviews on Fox News and Newsmax with interest, drawn by her charisma and his belief in her claim — included in a lawsuit rejected by a judge — that hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots did not follow the chain of custody. While he felt she is too inexperienced for the White House, Swanson said he felt she deserved to be Arizona’s governor. “She wasn’t defeated,” he said.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Lake said everyone she met in Iowa agreed with her election claims. When pointed to some people who had raised doubts about election denialism, she called a reporter “brainwashed.”

“Everyone who talked with me in that line said keep fighting,” she said, referring to the hordes of people who queued for selfies with Lake, “because they are stealing elections in Arizona and other states. And because of that, what we want as Americans isn’t happening.”

 

So yes, Republicans like Lake are running openly on the fact they can't win elections. 

The real issue is what anyone expects Lake to do about it, and the answer is "why have them at all?"

And when that dawns on you that this really is the GOP point of view...

 

You'll understand why she's not at home watching Real Housewives like most election losers.