In Arizona it continues in November.
At Tuesday evening Related Press confirmed that Kari Lake, the former Phoenix news anchor who previously lost her race for Arizona governor in 2020, will be the Republican nominee in the general Senate election after defeating her primary opponent, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb:
PHOENIX (AP) — Kari Lake won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Arizona on Tuesday, setting up a bitter battle against Democratic U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego for a seat that could be crucial to the Senate majority.
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The primaries will provide insight into the direction the narrowly divided state is heading into the final stretch of the 2024 elections, in which Arizona will play a central role in the battle for control of the White House and Congress.
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“Go vote,” Trump urged his supporters on Monday evening in a campaign phone call with Lake. “She’s fantastic. She will not let us down. Kari Lake, I just think she’s going to be the best you can get. There’s no one better.”
On the Democratic side, Rep. Ruben Gallego unsurprisingly won the nomination handily in the primary (as AP noted in the story linked above, he ran unopposed). Gallego ran as a left-wing challenger to incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I), who was apparently pushed out of re-election by progressive activists in the Copper State. Sinema switched her party affiliation to Independent after voting “no” and helping to defeat the Democrats’ prized filibuster bill, although she continued to work with Democrats.
Just moments before AP decided the race in her favor, Lake posted a message expressing gratitude to her followers on X. The post appears to introduce a fresh slogan for the general election race: “Make Arizona Grand Again” – a state-specific reference to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s famed slogan.
Thank you for trusting me, Arizona.
I will not disappoint you.
Together we will save this country.
Together we will #MakeArizonaGrandAgain. pic.twitter.com/eW0Q9TTFVV
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) July 31, 2024
Shortly thereafter, she addressed her supporters at a campaign rally in Phoenix and officially accepted the Republican nomination:
Arizona,
I stand before you today to formally accept your nomination as the Republican candidate for the United States Senate in the great state of Arizona! pic.twitter.com/XuaRHFJzob
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) July 31, 2024
The fresh Republican candidate for the Senate also spoke kindly about the defeated candidate Lamb, whom she described as “[her] Friend”:
.@sherifflamb1 was never an enemy. He is my friend.
I’m really grateful for everything he’s given to Arizona, and I know he’s not done fighting for the city. And he’s not done protecting it.
He ran a great campaign and I look forward to working with him in the future. pic.twitter.com/qdf1oFuPFo
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) July 31, 2024
At the time of this writing, ballots are still arriving for counting, but it’s pretty effortless to see why AP called the race so quickly, as Garrett Archer, political reporter for the local ABC affiliate station, showed:
First results Maricopa:
Lake Kari: 53%
Mark Lamb 40%309,000 ballots.
— Die AZ – abc15 – Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) July 31, 2024
Since this is a breaking news story, RedState will provide updates as soon as they are available.
UPDATE: In the final submission of counted ballots at 10 p.m. MST, Archer reported that “Apache [County] just 2,828 ballots cast,” so the result is:
Lake 57
Lamb 39
He noted: “She added another 226 to her net.”
