Kari Lake: ‘I believe I’m the only one who can win’ Arizona Senate race

Former Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake said she believes she is the only candidate who could win next year’s Arizona Senate race as she weighs whether to join the contest. 

Lake said while commenting The Family Leadership Summit, a conservative, Christian conference held in Iowa, that she will decide whether she will run for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s (I-Ariz.) Senate seat in the next few months, potentially making a decision in the fall, NBC News reported. 

But she said she thinks she is the only candidate who could win the seat. 

“I’ve looked at the polling, to be honest, and I believe I’m the only one who can win that race,” Lake said Friday. 

Lake has been a rumored candidate for the Senate seat for months following her loss to Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) in the governor’s race last November. Lake launched a lawsuit contesting the results following the election that was thrown out and has refused to concede her loss to Hobbs. 

Her legal team was fined more than $120,000 on Friday after a federal court ruled that the lawsuit contesting the results in Maricopa County, the most populous in the state, was “frivolous.” 

Lake has also been a steady supporter of former President Trump and reportedly was in consideration to be his running mate in the 2024 presidential election if he wins the Republican nomination. 

“We have an opportunity to pick up a very important seat so that when President Trump gets back into office, he can have people in D.C. ready to back him up with this incredible agenda,” she said at the event. 

A poll released in April showed Lake with a large lead over her potential GOP opponents for the nomination for Senate, garnering 38 support compared to 10 percent for the next-closest candidate. 

But some Republican strategists have expressed concerns about the party’s electoral prospects if she is the nominee and continues to focus on false claims of voter fraud. 

Sinema has not announced whether she will run for a second term. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) has launched a bid for the Democratic nomination to succeed Sinema, who was originally elected as a Democrat but left the party to become an independent. Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb is currently the only major Republican candidate in the race.