October 2, 2021

Trump’s Candidate for Arizona Governor Says She Would Not Have Certified Biden’s Victory

Kari Lake and other “stop the steal” Republicans are running for office on Trump’s Big Lie.

Trump supporters protesting election results on November 30, 2020, in PhoenixRoss D. Franklin/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On November 30, 2020, Arizona’s Republican governor, attorney general, and chief justice of the state Supreme Court certified the state’s electoral votes for President Joe Biden.

If Donald Trump has his way, that will not happen again for the Democratic candidate in 2024. 

Kari Lake, a former news anchor who is now the Trump-endorsed candidate for Arizona governor in 2022, told One America News on Friday that she “would not have certified” the votes had she been governor at the time. She cited debunked lies about “serious irregularities” that were spread by the likes of Rudy Giuliani, whom she noted was in Arizona “at that very moment” of certification. (A New York court suspended Giuliani’s law license this year for making “demonstrably false and misleading statements” about the 2020 election.) Lake previously told the Arizona Republic that Trump was “the real winner of Arizona.” Her latest comments follow the much-hyped and highly dubious “audit” authorized by Arizona’s state senate recently that nonetheless confirmed Biden’s victory in the state.

Trump endorsed Lake on Tuesday after she said his head should be carved on Mt. Rushmore, saying she “will fight to restore Election Integrity (both past and future!).” Polls show she is now the frontrunner for the GOP nomination to replace outgoing GOP Gov. Doug Ducey, who Trump famously called during the certification ceremony and later attacked on Twitter for certifying the results. The Democratic nominee for governor is Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who oversaw the state’s election and has been a target of death threats from “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theorists. 

Lake is the latest candidate backed by Trump who supported overturning the 2020 election, a dominant theme with Arizona Republicans. State Rep. Mark Finchem, a Trump-endorsed candidate for secretary of state in 2022, was at the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6. Trump has also supported GOP secretary of state candidates in swing states like Georgia and Michigan who’ve spread lies about the 2020 election and would be in a position to oversee the counting of votes in the next presidential election if they win their races.

According to Reuters, 10 of 15 declared Republican secretary of state candidates in five battleground states—Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada—“have either declared that the 2020 election was stolen or called for their state’s results to be invalidated or further investigated.”

Nearly a dozen states, including Arizona, have passed new laws this year to subvert and undermine how fair elections are run, a likely prelude to challenging the results of the next presidential election.

LET’S TALK ABOUT OPTIMISM FOR A CHANGE

Democracy and journalism are in crisis mode—and have been for a while. So how about doing something different?

Mother Jones did. We just merged with the Center for Investigative Reporting, bringing the radio show Reveal, the documentary film team CIR Studios, and Mother Jones together as one bigger, bolder investigative journalism nonprofit.

And this is the first time we’re asking you to support the new organization we’re building. In “Less Dreading, More Doing,” we lay it all out for you: why we merged, how we’re stronger together, why we’re optimistic about the work ahead, and why we need to raise the First $500,000 in online donations by June 22.

It won’t be easy. There are many exciting new things to share with you, but spoiler: Wiggle room in our budget is not among them. We can’t afford missing these goals. We need this to be a big one. Falling flat would be utterly devastating right now.

A First $500,000 donation of $500, $50, or $5 would mean the world to us—a signal that you believe in the power of independent investigative reporting like we do. And whether you can pitch in or not, we have a free Strengthen Journalism sticker for you so you can help us spread the word and make the most of this huge moment.

payment methods

LET’S TALK ABOUT OPTIMISM FOR A CHANGE

Democracy and journalism are in crisis mode—and have been for a while. So how about doing something different?

Mother Jones did. We just merged with the Center for Investigative Reporting, bringing the radio show Reveal, the documentary film team CIR Studios, and Mother Jones together as one bigger, bolder investigative journalism nonprofit.

And this is the first time we’re asking you to support the new organization we’re building. In “Less Dreading, More Doing,” we lay it all out for you: why we merged, how we’re stronger together, why we’re optimistic about the work ahead, and why we need to raise the First $500,000 in online donations by June 22.

It won’t be easy. There are many exciting new things to share with you, but spoiler: Wiggle room in our budget is not among them. We can’t afford missing these goals. We need this to be a big one. Falling flat would be utterly devastating right now.

A First $500,000 donation of $500, $50, or $5 would mean the world to us—a signal that you believe in the power of independent investigative reporting like we do. And whether you can pitch in or not, we have a free Strengthen Journalism sticker for you so you can help us spread the word and make the most of this huge moment.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate