Trump-Lake in 2024? Think of the possibilities
With all the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Republicans’ stunning election losses in Arizona, the MAGA Nation is missing the exceedingly good news out of the Grand Canyon State.
Arizona’s loss is America’s gain.
Kari Lake is now free to join Donald Trump in his campaign to reclaim the White House in 2024. Free from her election-eve assurance that she would stay and govern our state for the next eight years.
Free to join with Trump and mount a nationwide campaign about the many ways in which they’ve been robbed.
Oh, I know. Trump doesn’t like losers but look around. The pickins’ of winners in his circle is becoming exceedingly slim given his losses in the midterm election.
Besides, give Lake credit.
The newscaster who spent two decades reading a teleprompter turned out to be a masterful politician. She jumped into the governor’s race 17 months ago with a bellyful of anger and proceeded to rage her way right to the top of the
Republican ticket.
And she checks all the right boxes for a vice presidential run:
● Embrace conspiracy theories about election fraud in 2020? Check.
● Embrace conspiracy theories about election fraud in 2022? Check.
● Attack the media? John McCain? The FBI? Check. Check. Check.
● Rail about a border “invasion” and a stolen election and masks and a stolen election and liberals and oh yeah, not one but two supposedly stolen elections? Cheeeeeeck.
She’s basically Trump in heels, a camera-ready candidate who could offer a shot of adrenaline to Trump and his flagging MAGA movement.
Plus, she hails from Iowa, giver of corn and presidential contenders.
Last week’s election gave Lake new fuel with which she can push forward with Trump’s presidential campaign of personal grievance. Expect a pitched battle that will elevate her standing in the echo chamber that is the self-proclaimed New Right.
Already, she’s alleging nefarious conduct by Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs in last week’s election. Never mind that Arizona’s secretary of state had nothing to do with Maricopa County’s printer issues or the wait outside of voting centers or counting votes.
On Thursday, Lake put out a video vowing to fight on, alleging that “tens of thousands” of Maricopa County voters were disenfranchised on Election Day.
“I talked to voters who waited in line for hours. One man told me he went to a location and there was a three-hour line because the tabulators weren’t working,” she said.
“He drove 15 miles to another location and the printers weren’t working. He drove another 15 miles and was finally able to cast his vote but he’s not sure it counted.”
Pity that voter didn’t just drop his ballot into a secure box to be counted later, as the poll workers directed and as thousands of other voters did. Or he could have pulled up Maricopa County’s website, which listed wait times at every voting center. While some were long, others were just minutes.
As for those printer problems, an Arizona Republic analysis shows they affected about 30% of the county’s voting centers and were scattered in both Republican and Democratic areas. Republicans may have been more inconvenienced but that’s more a function of them listening to election deniers who told them not to trust the state’s decades-old early ballot program.
Me? I’m guessing if “tens of thousands” of voters were disenfranchised, we’d have heard from a few of them by now.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer says no voter was turned away.
“The board has said that 250k-ish people checked in (to voting centers). 230k-ish read their ballots through the tabulator,” he wrote, in reply to my question. “The others came back (in those secure boxes) and were central tabulated.”
Which, of course, matters not at all to Lake. The point, after all, is not to get to the truth but to get back on the campaign trail, sledgehammer in hand.
There is work, after all, to be done in MAGAland.
Swing voters across the country just sent a strong signal that the era of extremism is over. In state after state, election deniers were shown the door. In Senate races. In secretary of state races. In governor’s races.
Trump didn’t get the message. Neither did Lake, who on Thursday signaled she’s not about to accept the results of last week’s election.
“For two years, I’ve been sounding the alarm about our broken election system here in Arizona and this past week has confirmed everything we’ve been saying,” she said, in her video.
“I‘m busy here collecting evidence and data. Rest assured I have assembled the best and brightest legal team and we are exploring every avenue to correct the many wrongs that have been done this past week. I’m doing everything in my power to right these wrongs.”
Trump must be thrilled.
I envision two more years of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Trump-Lake 2024?
Somewhere, I picture Ron DeSantis smiling.