Kari Lake Floats Election Interference Claims in First Remarks Since Loss

Kari Lake has spoken publicly for the first time since her loss in Arizona’s Senate race, raising new claims of election interference from 2022.
Lake, a staunch Trump ally who gained notoriety after claiming, without evidence, that her loss in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election was due to election fraud, has yet to concede the race after the Associated Press called it for her opponent, Democratic nominee Ruben Gallego, on Monday.
The AP reports that Gallego won the race with 50 percent of the vote, while Lake received 47.8 percent.
According to Gallego’s team, as of Tuesday afternoon, Lake had not yet contacted him, The Arizona Republic reported.
But while Lake has not conceded, she floated election interference claims from 2022 in a post on X on Tuesday.
Newsweek has contacted the Lake and Gallego campaigns for comment.
The post came after Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate Eric Hovde posted a video to X on Tuesday casting doubt on the results of the state’s race, which he lost to Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin.
Hovde admitted Tuesday that he lost the election but refused to concede, pointing to what he claimed were irregularities with the vote results. There is no evidence of any wrongdoing in the election, the results of which are still being reviewed by counties before they submit the canvassed totals to the state by November 19 for certification by December 1.
Hovde said in the video posted to X that he was considering whether to seek a recount in the battleground state contest, which Baldwin won by less than 30,000 votes, 49.4 percent to 48.5 percent, according to NBC.
“While I’m deeply concerned, asking for a recount is a serious decision that requires careful consideration,” he said. “Further, there are meaningful limits on a recount, because they don’t look at the integrity of the ballot.”
In response, Lake wrote: “Praying for you, @EricHovde. I’ve been there.”
Meanwhile, some of Lake’s supporters took to social media on Tuesday to peddle claims of election interference.
Among those was Dinesh D’Souza, a political commentator who supports Trump, who called for an audit of Arizona’s Senate race on Tuesday, “given Trump’s impressive win in the state.”
“We are now being asked to believe something that confutes any kind of common sense,” D’Souza said, “which is that the same number of people who voted for Kamala roughly voted for Kari Lake, and the same number of people who voted for Trump roughly voted for Gallego.”
“I refuse to believe that. That makes no sense at all,” he added.
While splitting ballots may not be common, it happens. Trump won Arizona in 2016, but voters there have rejected Trump-endorsed Senate candidates in every election since. In last week’s election, Trump won Arizona with 52.3 percent of the vote. Vice President Kamala Harris received 46.7 percent.
It follows a letter by Lake’s campaign sent to officials in Pima County, a Democratic stronghold, asking for the total number of outstanding votes and alleging “discrepancies” in the county’s reporting of ballots on Friday after an error led to the reporting of an incorrect number of untallied ballots last week.
A spokesperson for Pima County said: “It’s a clerical error. It’s an easy explanation. But in this age of conspiracy, everything gets blown up into inserted votes.”