Kari Lake warned by NRSC to stop dwelling on the past in Arizona Senate run

The chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee is advising Arizona GOP firebrand Kari Lake to focus on the future as she prepares to announce a Senate bid next week to unseat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ).

“I think one thing we’ve learned from 2022 is voters do not want to hear about grievances from the past,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) said in an interview with CNN. “They want to hear about what you’re going to do for the future. And if our candidates stay on that message of looking down the highway versus the rearview mirror, I think they’ll be a lot more successful, particularly in their appeal to independent voters, which usually decide elections.”

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Lake has refused to acknowledge her 2022 gubernatorial loss to now-Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ), claiming faulty machines and voter disenfranchisement led to her defeat. The fiery former news anchor has been one of the most vocal Republicans still committed to peddling former President Donald Trump’s false election claims, which she turned into the centerpiece of her failed gubernatorial bid. Since then, Lake has brought a litany of lawsuits attempting to have the results of her loss to Hobbs overturned, which have all been rejected.

Lake burst onto the political scene after winning a brutal primary election campaign and came within 17,000 votes of winning Arizona’s most politically powerful office as a first-time candidate.

Though she lost to Hobbs, Lake was able to build a loyal following among Trump supporters in the state, which she is hoping will help her in a Senate matchup.

Over the past year, she’s crisscrossed the country, fundraising for her multiple lawsuits, going on a book tour, and acting as a surrogate for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Most recently, she was in Iowa, knocking on doors on his behalf, and was a surrogate at the GOP debate. There had been rumors that she was being considered as Trump’s running mate, though that looks less likely now. 

She will launch her campaign at an Oct. 10 rally and will likely enter the race as the Republican front-runner for the GOP nomination, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“We need to get a senator in there who is going to fight back and put America first,” Lake said.

Daines, who has praised Lake as “very gifted,” warned it is “going to be important for her to look to the future and not so much the past.”

The Arizona Senate race is a top target for Republicans looking to retake control of the Senate, which Democrats hold with a 51-49 majority.

Lake has been on a social media tear lately as well.

“Arizona has two TERRIBLE options running for Senate right now,” Lake posted on X, formerly Twitter, last week.

She called challenger Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) an “unhinged Marxist, who believes that border security is racist” and slammed Sinema for voting with “Biden more often than Bernie Sanders does.”

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An August poll from Noble Predictive Insights found Gallego leading in a three-way race against Lake and Sinema, 34%, compared to 26% for Lake and 25% for Sinema, who still has not announced if she would be running for reelection.

Emails to Lake for additional comment were not returned.