CNN
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Democrat Katie Hobbs is main Republican Kari Lake in Arizona governor’s race with a little bit greater than half of precincts reporting, and although a lot may change as ballots are counted, the GOP nominee is already casting doubt in regards to the election outcomes.
Lake gained the GOP major after amplifying former President Donald Trump’s lies in regards to the 2020 presidential election, falsely insisting that the election was rigged and stolen. And although the present margins may change dramatically as votes are counted, Lake is suggesting with none proof that there may very well be issues with Tuesday’s outcomes. (Hobbs, as secretary of state, rebuffed GOP efforts to overturn the leads to the 2020 election).
In a speech Tuesday evening at her election evening headquarters, Lake mentioned she felt like it’s “groundhog day.”
“We had November 3, 2020, that was referred to as incompetency 101,” Lake mentioned. She went on to counsel there was “incompetency” at play in each the August major and in Tuesday’s election – a not-so-subtle critique of her opponent’s oversight over elections. It was not instantly clear what she was referring to, however there was no proof of any widespread fraud.
“We want sincere elections and we’re going to convey them to you, Arizona, I guarantee you of that. The system we’ve got proper now doesn’t work,” Lake mentioned. She later informed her supporters to be affected person and mentioned she was assured that she would win.
Hobbs additionally addressed her backers on Tuesday evening, stating that the marketing campaign was feeling good about what they had been seeing.
“I do know we’re all keen to seek out out who gained every of those extremely essential races, however we are going to should be affected person and wait for each vote to be counted,” she mentioned in remarks as ready for supply. “We all know my opponent and her allies have been sowing doubt and confusion all through this marketing campaign, and it’s unacceptable that they had been spreading misinformation as we speak whereas individuals had been exercising their proper to vote.”
All 4 GOP nominees on the prime of the ticket in Arizona have echoed Trump’s lies in regards to the 2020 election. And right-wing media seized on tabulator issues in Maricopa County earlier on Tuesday to boost the concept of fraud – regardless of assurances on the contrary from county officers – in a transparent echo of some conservatives’ repeated makes an attempt to solid doubt on Maricopa’s leads to 2020.
Arizona is a key battleground this yr for governor and Senate and sure shall be once more for president in 2024, sparking warnings from main Democratic figures, together with former President Barack Obama, that the GOP’s embrace of Trump’s election falsehoods and conspiracy theories may put democracy in danger in the event that they had been to brush to energy.
Charlie Kirk, the founder and president of right-wing group Turning Level USA, tweeted a false declare about two-hour wait occasions in Maricopa County, which was the positioning of repeated partisan “audits” in 2020. A Maricopa County decide on Tuesday evening denied a bid by Republicans to increase polling hours by three hours, saying there was no proof that any voters had been precluded from exercising their proper to vote.
Lake has repeatedly mentioned she wouldn’t have licensed Joe Biden’s win in Arizona in 2020.
The previous information anchor at Fox 10 in Phoenix ascended shortly to turn out to be probably the most distinguished candidates within the 2022 cycle as she and Hobbs vied to exchange term-limited Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.
Lake hewed carefully to the Trump playbook on extra than simply the 2020 election. She promised to declare an “invasion” on the border – in what she described as an effort to amass larger energy for the governor’s workplace to deal with the migrant disaster – and he or she referred to as for the arrest of each of Dr. Anthony Fauci and her Democratic opponent.
Earlier than asserting her bid, Lake left her anchor job in 2021 – stating that she didn’t just like the course that journalism was going – after turning into a family title in Phoenix. In one in all her marketing campaign movies, she mentioned she was taking a sledgehammer to “leftist lies and propaganda,” as she destroyed tv units with the software in stiletto boots.
Watch Republican election official reply skeptics’ voting questions
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She dispatched her major opponents together with her forceful denunciations of Democratic leaders’ dealing with of the Covid-19 pandemic – blasting restrictions like masking as pointless and dangerous to kids. She welcomed comparisons to Trump all over the tip of the marketing campaign – professing at one occasion that she was delighted when one admirer referred to as her “Trump in a costume.”
Hobbs, a former social employee who labored with victims of home violence earlier than turning into a state lawmaker, ran a much more low-key and understated marketing campaign, limiting her entry to reporters and holding small, intimate occasions with supporters.
She made democracy and abortion rights her central focus, portraying Lake as an “excessive” and “harmful” determine who may jeopardize the sanctity of the 2024 presidential election by refusing to certify the outcomes.