Ben Bergquam was live on the scene when Kari Lake formally announced that she is running for a US Senate seat in Arizona.
“I’m in this for us Arizonans, and when you elect me to the United States Senate, you are electing a mama bear on a mission to protect not just my kiddos, not just my babies. I want to protect Arizona, and I want to protect the United States of America. I promise I will make you proud,” Lake said at her Senate campaign kick-off on Tuesday night.
“Kari Lake officially announces her bid for US Senate, and she’s coming for the cartels and the enemies within this nation, including the #Fakenews media!” Bergquam Tweeted.
WHAT THE NEWS IS SAYING. BERGQUAM IS RIGHT!
Jordan Conradson of Gateway Pundit reported early polling that Lake is already pulling ahead of the others in the race.
“A new poll from National Research Inc. shows that Kari Lake holds an early lead over radical left US Senate General Election opponent Ruben Gallego, with incumbent Kyrsten Sinema (I) trailing by double digits in a hypothetical three-way.“
Politico reported that Lake’s Senate kick-off speech was different from her Governor Kick off speech, apparently unaware that these are two different positions:
“Kari Lake launched her long-awaited Senate campaign with a 50-minute speech on Tuesday that bore little resemblance to the fire and brimstone candidacy that marked her gubernatorial bid two years ago.
Appearing in an airplane hangar in 94-degree heat, the former TV anchor devoted much of her address to lamenting rising inflation, gas prices and the border crisis. The script suggested a candidate keenly invested in trying to tweak her image. It contained just one passing reference to the election fraud claims that she has harped on so much that they came to politically define her.”
NBC News reported on the details, trying to downplay the border crisis, which will be a foundational issue for Lake:
Republican Kari Lake kicked off her campaign for the Senate on Tuesday night with a boisterous rally in Scottsdale, Arizona, rattling off conservative talking points and playing an endorsement video from former President Donald Trump.
“This mama bear has a whole lot of fight left in her,” Lake told more than 200 supporters. “I am not going to retreat. I’m going to stand on top of this hill with every single one of you, and I know you’re by my side as I formally announce my candidacy for the United States Senate.”
Lake, a former TV anchor, lost the Arizona governor’s race last year; she has refused to concede the race and continues to litigate her allegations of fraud. In her announcement speech, she suggested divine intervention kept her out of the governor’s mansion.
“After we did everything right, and we saw the disaster of Election Day, sometimes when things don’t go the way we expect, we find ourselves questioning and asking why,” she said. “I said, ‘Why God?’ I think God has bigger plans for us.”
In her address, Lake spoke of a southern border overrun by armed cartels and suggested that the U.S. could face a terrorist attack like Hamas’ assault on Israel over the weekend.
“Are you guys seeing that the same thing could happen here? Thousands of fighting-age men have poured across the southern border with no vetting. We know they have terrorists coming across the border,” she said. “The cartels own Arizona, and, until we kick Joe Biden to the curb, Ruben Gallego and Kyrsten Sinema, we’re not going to have a state.”