TUCSON, Ariz. — On the eve of the presidential debate, GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake decided to skip out on her own.
Lake, the MAGA firebrand and front-runner for her party’s Senate nomination in the key battleground state, was invited to participate in a formal debate Wednesday night against her lone GOP primary competitor, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb. She instead opted to host a town hall in Tucson with a former UFC fighter, leaving Lamb alone on the debate stage.
Lake’s campaign billed the event as a town hall for Republicans, independents and Democrats alike as she looks ahead to a general election fight that will help determine which party controls the Senate. She made only one reference to Lamb throughout the hourlong event, without naming him explicitly.
“We’re going to make sure that we get out and vote, and we need to vote in July, even though I’m up 31 points over my competitor in July,” she said of Lamb.
Instead, Lake is mostly looking ahead to her likely matchup with Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego for the seat being vacated by Democratic-turned-independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Lake has attacked him as a “swamp rat,” a “deadbeat” and, on Wednesday, “Nancy Pelosi with a beard.”
Meanwhile, during Lake’s town hall, Lamb participated in a roughly 30-minute Q&A organized by Arizona’s Clean Elections Commission in lieu of the debate that never was. Lamb also avoided uttering her name, though he took a thinly veiled jab at her for not showing up.
“If Kari Lake were here, what’s the first thing you’d ask her?” the moderator asked Lamb on Wednesday night.
“I’m not running against anybody,” Lamb responded.
“This is a job interview, and I’m here tonight,” he said. “I’d never hire anybody that didn’t show up for a job interview, nor would I hire anybody if they didn’t have the right experience to do the job.”
Lake has long held an aversion to debating Lamb. At a news conference in Phoenix on March 15, Lake was asked whether she’d be up to the challenge. “I am focusing on the general election,” she said.
“This is an expensive race, guys. There is going to be 200, 250 million poured into this race. We need to have somebody who has the ability to compete in that, and so I’m focusing squarely on the competition. And that is a guy named Ruben,” Lake told a group of reporters assembled outside the State Capitol.
The closest the two came to a formal debate was on May 23, when Lake and Lamb participated in a virtual forum hosted by the Association of Mature American Citizens. Each took turns answering questions remotely, and sparks flew.
“He’s a total coward when it comes to election integrity,” Lake said of Lamb for refusing to reject the results of the 2020 election, which Joe Biden won over Donald Trump in Arizona and nationally.
“I don’t think Joe Biden got 81 million votes,” Lamb said during the forum. “But I don’t live in the world of feelings and thoughts. I live in the world of evidence, what you can prove in court beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Lake’s statewide name recognition outweighs Lamb’s after her failed 2022 bid for governor further elevated her after decades as a local news anchor. In addition, Lake has the endorsem*nt of Trump and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and she has raised millions of dollars, making her the clear favorite in the July 30 primary.
Still, Lake’s recent shifts in her abortion stance have given some Arizona Republicans pause. Dana Morrison-Miller, 62, of Phoenix, used to support Lake but is now all in on Lamb.
During her 2022 run for governor, Lake praised a near-total abortion ban from 1864 that was technically on the books in Arizona as a “great law.” But after the state Supreme Court ruled the ban was enforceable this spring, she released a video condemning the court’s decision, saying the ban, which did not include exceptions for rape or incest, was “out of line with where the people of this state are.”
The Legislature has since repealed the 1864 ban, with Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signing it into law in early May.
“I was really disappointed when Kari chose not to stand firm once … Roe v. Wade was overturned,” Morrison-Miller said. “When she did that, like, almost a sickening Democrat-type soft-sell ad for softening the line and being pro-abortion.”
But Melissa Poghossian, 50, a speech pathologist from Peoria, was unperturbed by Lake’s wavering stance on abortion.
“She knows what it’s like to be a working woman. She knows what it’s like to be an American, and she wants to save our country,” Poghossian said.
