GOP Candidate for Governor Commits to Accepting Election Result… If She Wins

Kari Lake, a television journalist turned MAGA candidate to be Arizona’s next governor, rejected an invitation on Sunday to commit to electoral democracy, opting instead to copy Donald Trump’s brand of . Pressured repeatedly on whether she’d accept the results of the election regardless of the result, Lake said she’d accept if she won — and then laid the groundwork for contesting the election if she loses. 

“I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result,” Lake said Sunday on CNN. Asked if she’d accept the result if she loses, Lake paused, smiled, and said: “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result. The people of Arizona will never support and vote for a coward like [Democratic nominee] Katie Hobbs.”

Lake’s rhetoric echoes Donald Trump’s debunked assertion that he lost the election because of voter fraud. And her posturing followed a sustained attempt to cast doubt over the results of that 2020 election, re-upping debunked claims about ballot “chain of custody” and other conspiracy theories. Pressed for evidence, she said her team would send it to CNN and then accused the media of failing to cover it.

The interview turned testy as Bash repeatedly rejected Lake’s debunked assertions, with the candidate demanding to talk about issues facing Arizona’s future. “You want to have me on here and talk [about the] 2020 election … Can we talk about the issues?” Lake asked interviewer Dana Bash. “I came on here thinking we were going to talk about the issues facing Arizonans right now. And you’ve spent the entirety of this time talking about 2020. I think you’re stuck on 2020.”

Given that opportunity earlier in the in the interview, however, Lake chose to parrot Trump’s claims undocumented immigrants, calling them rapists and murderers.

The prediction website 538 gives Lake a slight edge over Dobbs as of Oct. 14.