A barrage of bogus election claims from Lake
Lake, a former local Fox news anchor, repeatedly and falsely claimed in Wednesday’s debate that the 2020 election was “stolen” and “corrupt.” As alleged evidence, Lake cited a “forensic audit.” A Republican-initiated partisan review, described by supporters as a check but marred by problems, confirmed that Biden beat Trump in Arizona’s most populous county. Lake also defended a right-wing film about the 2020 election that is full of logic holes and facts, even after the debate moderator noted that Trump appointee former Attorney General William Barr had mocked the film. And Lake falsely said 34,000 Arizona ballots were “counted two, three and four times,” when that simply wasn’t the case. (It wasn’t clear whether Lake was referring to a long-circulated false claim about duplicate ballot envelope images, which have an entirely benign explanation, or if he was talking about something else.) Lake asked the three other candidates on stage to raise their hands. them if they agreed that the elections were corrupt and stolen. When her top competitor, developer Karrin Taylor Robson, was the only one not to — Robson said she wouldn’t participate in Lake’s “stunt” — Lake’s Twitter account called Robson’s refusal “exclusive.” . Lake’s account reposted video of the exchange on Friday, this time calling Robson’s denial “disgusting.” In other words, a leading candidate for high office attacks another leading candidate for refusing to join her in defending a lie. Lake’s campaign declined to comment substantively for this article. When asked for supporting information about Lake’s false claim that the ballots were counted up to four times, an aide responded only mockingly to CNN.
Robson would not say whether she would have certified in the 2020 election
Mr Robson appears to have gained ground with the party’s voters, narrowing Lake’s lead in recent polls. Robson got a boost this week when the third-place candidate, former Rep. Matt Salmon, dropped out and endorsed her. Unlike Lake, who said in the debate that the 2020 election is “the number one issue” today, Robson has not made the 2020 election a top point of emphasis. And Robson hasn’t gone nearly as far as Lake in scorning the 2020 election. Robson, however, has also questioned its legitimacy. He told the debate: “I think our election was not entirely fair.” Robson cited alleged media suppression of news stories damaging to Biden and alleged anti-conservative bias by “big tech,” “liberal judges” who allowed new policies to be imposed shortly before the election (which was held during the Covid-19 pandemic ) and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg have donated a total of hundreds of millions of dollars to local elected offices across the country. Robson did not directly answer when asked if she would have certified Arizona’s 2020 results as governor, saying she was “not aware” of the information Ducey had at the time. She was the only candidate in the debate who said unequivocally that she would accept the result of these primaries. Hobbs’ campaign manager Nicole DeMont criticized both Lake and Robson for spending time complaining about the 2020 election, even though “Arizona people are tired of being made fun of on late night TV.” “Trump front runner Kari Lake has been the biggest proponent of the Big Lie since day one, but now Karrin Taylor Robson is also peddling these conspiracy theories in an effort to get ahead of the polls,” DeMont said in an email. He said Hobbs is committed to fighting for policies that “Arizonians really care about” on issues like schools, water and affordability. Election day in the primaries is August 2nd. Early voting begins Wednesday.
