As part of a Washington Post deep dive into Kari Lake's brutal loss in her bid to be the next governor of Arizona, one campaign insider stated she has only herself to blame for losing a winnable election because she refused to listen to advice.
Lake -- following the footsteps of Donald Trump -- is still disputing the election results after they have been certified and recently filed a lawsuit claiming fraud and demanding to be named the winner.
According to the report from the WaPo's Isaac Stanley-Becker and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Lake could have saved herself all the turmoil if she had followed the advice of her campaign strategists as well as longtime Arizona Republicans who were counseling her to dial down the extremist rhetoric in the waning days before the election.
As the report notes, "Advisers wanted her to focus less on Trump’s false claims of voter fraud and more on homelessness, water independence and border security, according to people familiar with their counsel. Business leaders recommended that she tone down her MAGA message to create a friendlier climate for capital. Republican strategists asked her to stop denigrating early ballots, a method of voting once critical to Republican victories in the state."
However, Lake balked and followed her own political instincts which, in turn, led to her loss, according to insiders, chief among them is her belief that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election due to voter fraud.
According to observers, that single-minded obsession led to her squandering a lead against newly-elected Democrat Katie Hobbs.
Speaking about Lake's obsession with Trump's loss, one Arizona Republican complained, "She would never break frame. She'd sort of look at you with a puzzled face and be like, ‘But the election was stolen in 2020.’”
Another senior Arizona Republican claimed the warning signs of a Lake downward spiral were evident from the launch.
“It was both a collapse and, now in hindsight, it was a failed campaign from the beginning," they bluntly confessed. “I don’t really know what to say beyond outrageous arrogance and never getting out of primary mode. This election wasn’t stolen. It was given away.”
Another campaign insider stated that her career as a news host led to bad habits that crippled her message to voters.
“She wanted to be a television person at heart. She wanted to sensationalize everything,” they stated.
"Advisers told her that voters already knew she was endorsed by Trump and urged her to begin tailoring her message to the general election, which was three months away. To win in November, they said, she would have to broaden her appeal," the report notes, adding one adviser recalled, "The idea we tried to get across was, ‘We don’t need to spend another penny calling you the Trump candidate.’”
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