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The Arizona Supreme Court declined last month to hear parts of Republican Kari Lake’s appeal over the gubernatorial race from November’s midterms. However, the state’s highest court did revive a claim that was dismissed by a trial court regarding the signature verification process in Maricopa County.
In a newly filed briefing, Lake’s team doubled down at the state Supreme Court on her claim that there are 35,563 ballots that were unaccounted for and allegedly showed up in Maricopa County’s final total in November’s midterm election.
The court also ordered Lake to file a response to Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs’ and Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ motions asking the court to sanction Lake for claiming in her brief “the undisputed fact that 35,563 unaccounted for ballots were added to the total of ballots at a third-party processing facility.”
The justices concluded, “The record does not reflect that 35,563 unaccounted ballots were added to the total count. The motions for sanctions will be considered in due course.”
The motion over the alleged 35,563 is critical because it exceeds Hobbs’ roughly 17,000 vote margin of victory.
In a new filing of their own, Hobbs and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes asked the Arizona Supreme Court to sanction Lake for peddling “frivolous conspiracy theories” in Arizona courts, KPVI reported.
“In the months since the election, Kari Lake has baselessly and relentlessly contested her loss and sought to overturn the will of Arizona’s voters and sow distrust in our election processes and officials,” Hobbs’ lawyers wrote in a motion requesting sanctions.
In late March, the Arizona Supreme Court granted Lake’s motion to revive the claim regarding the signature verification process in Maricopa County.
“In an order Wednesday, the state’s highest court said a lower court erroneously dismissed Lake’s claim challenging the application of signature verification procedures on early ballots in Maricopa County. The court sent the claim back to a trial court to consider,” the Associated Press reported.
Prior to that, an appeals court ruled against Lake and held that Arizona voters were able to cast their ballots and votes were counted properly in Arizona during the 2022 midterm elections.
But Lake’s not backing down and has been very active in political circles.
A brand new poll found that she has a massive lead in the Republican primary if she were to run for the U.S. Senate seat in 2024.
According to a recent poll by J.L. Partners, Lake holds a 28-point lead over her nearest rival for the Republican nomination in the state.
Lake attracted 38 percent of the vote, followed by Karrin Taylor Robson with only 10 percent of the primary vote, Mark Lamb with 8 percent, Blake Masters with 7 percent, Abe Hamadeh with 4 percent, and Jim Lamon with 3 percent.
🚨 ARIZONA GOP PRIMARY POLL
PRES:
Trump — 47% (+23)
DeSantis — 24%
Cheney — 4%
Pence — 4%
Haley — 3%
Ramaswamy — 2%
T. Scott — 1%SEN:
Lake — 38% (+28)
Taylor Robson — 10%
Lamb — 8%
Masters — 7%
Hamadeh — 4%
Lamon — 3%@JLPartnersPolls | 04/12 | 550 LVhttps://t.co/mqAliQTGC8 pic.twitter.com/Nx5I0uZnOA— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) April 17, 2023
During an interview with conservative Charlie Kirk, the former Arizona gubernatorial candidate said she will “seriously consider” running for the U.S. Senate when asked about her future political plans.
“I don’t know politically what I will do next. I never had any desire to get into politics, and the people of Arizona recruited me to run for governor and we have led an amazing movement of We The People,” Lake said, adding that a run for the U.S. Senate “is something I will seriously consider.”
“I’ve looked at a lot of polling, probably five polls showing that I can not only win handily in a primary, but I can go on to win the entire race for Senate,” she continued.
A survey from late January by Blueprint Polling had similar results and found that Lake is leading by 4 points over Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and by 22 points over incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who switched her party registration from Democrat to Independent.
“An early 2023 survey of likely general election voters illustrates that Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s path to
reelection is both complicated and unprecedented. Sinema runs a distant third in a hypothetical three-way race in the general that also includes 2022 GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and Democratic
Congressman Ruben Gallego,” the survey found.
“Kari Lake polls at 36% in a three-way Senate race with Gallego and Sinema. The congressman follows closely at 32% while the incumbent polls less than 14%. One in six voters are undecided. Sinema draws support from both Republicans and Democrats—she gets the vote of 15% of Biden 2020 voters and 11% of Trump 2020 voters,” the group found.
