Prescott, AZ — Kari Lake stood on the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse in Prescott the night before the US election on a bitterly cold Monday. She was addressing a couple hundred of her supporters, many of them wearing her MAKE ARIZONA GRAND AGAIN baseball hats.
After walking onstage to Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For a Hero,” Lake asked for a show of hands from people who were going to vote on Election Day.
No one put up their hands, as attendees looked away from the stage and shifted anxiously in place.
Lake, laughingly nervously, quickly switched gears and said: “You got the word to vote early. Great.”
Lake, a Republican running against Democrat Ruben Gallego for a Senate seat soon to be vacated by Kyrsten Sinema, became known as one of the most vocal boosters of the election denial in the wake of the 2020 election. She has built an entire political personality on the back of promoting debunked election conspiracy theories: After quitting a 22-year-long career as an anchor at Fox 10 in Phoenix, Lake announced her candidacy for governor of Arizona in 2021 and based much of her campaign on election denial.
This year, Lake has also pushed conspiracy theories about mail-in ballots and early voting, demanding a single day of in-person voting. Her support for early and mail-in voting on the eve of the election echoes the flip-flopping from former president Donald Trump, who has also realized that without early and mail-in voting he does not have a chance to win.
Lake may have changed her mind on the veracity of mail-in ballots, but she remains convinced that the election will be stolen. The only solution? “We’re going to make it too big to rig,” Lake told her supporters.
Throughout her Senate campaign, Lake has repeatedly refused to answer a simple question: Would she be willing to accept the results of the election?
Polling suggests that Lake could be about to face another loss, and based on her remarks throughout the campaign, it is unlikely that Lake, who will still not concede she lost in 2022, will be willing to graciously concede.
Ultimately, Lake took her challenge to court, and lost again. Undeterred, Lake continued to ingratiate herself with Trump and MAGA, and was even considered as a possible vice presidential candidate.
Now, Lake has claimed it would be foolish to commit to accepting election results without knowing what those results are.
Many of her supporters who spoke to WIRED on Monday night agreed with Lake, convinced there was fraud afoot in the election already.
“I don’t think we should accept anything until we know that the election is an honest election. We know the last one was rigged and the 2020 one was rigged,” Sandy, a Lake supporter from Prescott Valley, tells WIRED.
But there were also some supporters who urged their candidate to do the right thing and concede if she was defeated.
“We’ve got no choice, we’ve got to accept the results,” says Rick Starmer, from Chino Valley in Yavapai County.
You can follow all of WIRED’s 2024 presidential election coverage here.
