Kari Lake’s Republican primary foe wants to debate. Will she agree?
U.S. Senate candidate Mark Lamb called on fellow Republican candidate Kari Lake to debate him multiple times ahead of their GOP primary in a move intended to raise his profile but pull the party deeper into a battle many want to avoid.
Lake’s campaign declined to comment Wednesday on the challenge.
It was, in some ways, the boldest move in months for Lamb, the Pinal County sheriff whose low-profile campaign has not been able to compete for attention with the nationally watched and Trump-endorsed Lake.
“The Republican primary is not over by a long shot,” Lamb said in a written statement. “It’s going to be a spirited contest and it has now taken on renewed interest and sense of urgency. Bottom line, Arizonans do not need outsiders selecting our candidates.
With “that in mind, I am calling for a series of Republican debates with Kari Lake. Voters deserve to hear and see their candidates front and center on the issues.”
The debate issue comes as Lake has largely consolidated the support of official Senate Republicans, in addition to the Trump endorsement she scored when she began her campaign in October.
She is widely regarded as the GOP front-runner and in one three-month period raised and saved more cash than Lamb did in nine months.
Still, debates are a thorny issue for Lake.
For one, Lamb’s request came the same day that former President Donald Trump challenged President Joe Biden to debate him.
“It is important for the Good of our Country, that Joe Biden and I Debate Issues that are so vital to America, and the American People,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “Therefore, I am calling for Debates, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE!”
Trump refused to debate his Republican challengers in this year’s GOP primaries.
In her 2022 gubernatorial run, Lake called Democrat Katie Hobbs a “coward” for refusing to debate her.
Hobbs maintained that Lake would “create another spectacle,” and said Lake would use a debate to again advance conspiracy theories as she did in her primary debate.
A 2022 candidate forum in the fiveway Republican Senate race in Arizona did less to change the outcome of that contest than Trump’s endorsement did. Blake Masters vaulted from the middle of the pack to nominee-in-waiting after he secured Trump’s backing ahead of the event.
What Masters did do in the forum, however, was create a brushfire for himself in an answer announcing support for privatizing Social Security. It was an answer popular in a GOP-friendly crowd that Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and his Democratic allies used to attack Masters in the general election.
Lake has avoided even mentioning Lamb by name or acknowledge that she has the formality of a primary challenger. On Wednesday, she held a fundraiser in Washington scheduled to include 17 sitting Republican senators, including most of the party’s leadership.
For his part, Lamb has not attacked Lake in personal terms. Instead, he has focused on a campaign largely built around his contention that he is best suited to address what many Republicans view as a border overrun with drugs and illegal immigrants.