Is Kari Lake Using Court Case to Launch Senate Bid? – Legal experts have suggested that former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s legal efforts to overturn the last fall’s election will be thrown out, even as she has tried to take her case to the United States Supreme Court.
It was two weeks ago that the Arizona Court of Appeals had rejected her challenge to the result of November’s election after an earlier ruling from the superior court.
Lake had requested the declaration from the court that she was the actual winner of the election, and not Arizona’s Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs, who won the election by about 17,000 votes.
“Her request for relief fails because the evidence presented to the superior court ultimately supports the court’s conclusion that voters were able to cast their ballots, that votes were counted correctly, and that no other basis justifies setting aside the election results,” the Court of Appeals decision stated.
Lake has refused to accept the results and has claimed, without evidence, that voting irregularities and misconduct had cost her the election.
Lake, a former broadcast reporter, has suggested that issues with printers and tabulation machines, along with long lines on Election Day in November of last year resulted in “thousands” of Republican voters being unable to cast their ballots.
Kari Lake: Taking it to the Supreme Court
She has since said she will take her election lawsuit to the United States Supreme Court – even as the past cases were thrown out by the Maricopa County Superior Court and by the Arizona Court of Appeals.
Legal experts don’t expect it to prevail at the Supreme Court level.
“She has to show as a matter of federal or constitutional law the lower courts made an error or mistake that demands an overturning of the lower court decision,” David Schultz, a distinguished university professor of political science and legal studies at Hamline University, told Newsweek.
“This assumes she raised the federal issues at the lower court level. Even if she wins at the Supreme Court level they will at best order a new trial at the lower court level. But this is unlikely.”
Schultz further suggested that the principle of laches – a legal term that takes into consideration the timing or delay in bringing forward legal proceedings – likely means the case would be rejected. Instead, he said this could be a ploy to keep Lake’s name in the news for her to raise money for her next campaign.
Senate Bid?
Despite her loss, Lake has become something of a Conservative populist version of Georgia’s now twice defeated gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who had refused to concede her loss in 2018 – accusing Republican candidate Brian Kemp of engaging in voter suppression.
Kari Lake is now like Abrams and Beto O’Rourke – who has now gone on to lose races for the U.S. Senate and for Texas Governor – and has become a “Superstar Loser,” who still maintains support even in defeat.
In the case of Lake, she is already teasing a run for Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat.
The move could work, as Senator Kyrsten Sinema left the Democratic Party last year and as an independent could split the vote for the Democrats.
However, Lake may still face a greater challenge in the primaries.
Arizona Senate president pro tempore Thomas Ray “T.J.” Shope has already made it clear he won’t sit out the race, even as there have been reports Lake has “frozen the Republican field.”
“Hasn’t frozen me,” Shope told reporters last month. “We need somebody who can actually win in November and that’s why I’m seriously considering this U.S. Senate seat!”
Lake remains a political force in Arizona, but she still needs to actually win an election.
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Author Experience and Expertise:
A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
