(While not a concession, Republican Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake released a video Wednesday thanking Arizonans for supporting her throughout her attempt at a political career and spreading support for President-elect Donald Trump’s win, in addition to a Republican majority in both chambers of Congress.
“As for me? Well, I can say for certain that truth will never stop mattering to me,” Lake said. “You will never stop mattering to me. These memories that we’ve made together will never go away. They will grow sweeter over time and I will never stop fighting for the state I love.”
Lake was declared the loser of the race for Kyrsten Sinema’s U.S. Senate seat, with Democrat Ruben Gallego ahead by 79,102 votes at 99% of precincts reporting.
Lake started her political journey by running for Arizona governor in 2022, but the office instead went to then Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. Lake has yet to accept that loss, resulting in years of litigation that have not concluded in her favor.
Prior to this, Lake worked as a TV anchor for three decades before walking away from the fake news.
“For 30 years you trusted me to bring the news into your homes, to tell you the truth,” Lake said. “About three years ago, I walked away from a seven figure contract in the fake news because I couldn’t lie to you. What good is money if it comes at the cost of your soul?”
Lake has run her campaign on a MAGA campaign, being endorsed by Trump and while Trump won Arizona in the presidential election, pollsters have attributed this split ticket to Lake’s inability to garner support from Independent and undecided voters.
“Arizona is a light red state—no matter how you measure it—party registration, party identification, recalled past vote – it’s just a red state,” said NPI CEO and Founder Mike Noble in a post-election report.
“So someone like Gallego needed to post exceptional numbers among Independents and Democrats while peeling off some Republicans. Our polling showed Gallego doing just that,” he claimed. “We found, across many surveys, that Lake was closing the gap as Election Day neared – but that it wouldn’t be enough to erase Gallego’s lead. He’s cemented himself as a national player with this performance.”
Some have continued to raise doubts about the validity of the final count, particularly given the amount of time it took for the tally and the fact that the final vote counts in several counties continued to fluctuate after Election Day.
Arizona's 2024 Election Heist: Kari Lake's Stolen Victory
🔥 Attention Arizona! Are we really going to let this slide again? The 2024 election debacle screams FRAUD louder than a siren at midnight. Here's the breakdown that reeks of corruption:
Trump's Tallies: The… https://t.co/9aUf4ky8Oe pic.twitter.com/kPptPpZEpO
— Truth Patriot (@Truth2Everyone) November 10, 2024
Arizona’s dubious election-integrity safeguards have raised suspicion in the past two election cycles, when Hobbs was secretary of state, resulting in a litany of lawsuits and an audit commissioned by the state Senate, which found significant evidence of irregularities in Maricopa County during the 2020 election.
Nonetheless, due to county officials’ refusal to cooperate in the discovery process, neither the Lake-led lawsuits or the audit firm CyberNinjas could substantiate any actual legal evidence of fraud that could easily be redressed or acted upon without closing the legislative loopholes.
Even with Lake’s loss, Republicans were able to maintain a 53-47 majority in the U.S. Senate. Lake has yet to announce where she intends to set her sights in the future, political or otherwise.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
