Far-right Republican Kari Lake is locked in a tight contest for governor of Arizona – but it appears she will not be able to count on the support of the state’s Republican attorney general any time soon.
In an appearance on 60 Minutes last Sunday, Mark Brnovich called Ms Lake a grifter and implied she was a “clown” for her election denialism.
“I think there are a lot of clowns out there that saw what they wanted to see,” Mr Brnovich said, referring to people who denied the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election result. “What is it, a Simon and Garfunkel line? ‘A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest?’”
Arizona, a state president Joe Biden won narrowly over former president Donald Trump, was one of the handful of states where Republicans made allegations of fraud. Ms Lake, a former television news anchor, helped lead the effort to challenge the results and has continued to baselessly claim that the election was stolen.
“We had a fraudalent election, a false election, and we have an illegitmate election,” Ms Lake falsely claimed in a clip replayed on the CBS programme.
Ms Lake has established herself as a favourite of Mr Trump’s in large part because of her stance on the election. Mr Trump even told Arizona’s Republican nominee for the US Senate, Blake Masters, to take after Ms Lake in his own election denalism.
Mr Brnovich, who finished a distant third behind Mr Masters and Jim Lamon in the Republican Senate primary earlier this year, was not impressed — calling election fraud claims “horses***”.
“It’s like a giant grift, in some ways,” Mr Brnovich said.
Mr Brnovich is term limited as attorney general and will be leaving elected office early next year. The race to replace him features a Republican candidate, Abraham Hamadeh, who is also an election denier. Polls have shown a competitive race between Mr Hamadeh and Democrat Kris Mayes, the Arizona Corporation Commissioner.
Ms Lake, meanwhile, has been made a slight favourite to defeat Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in the governor’s race. The elections forecaster FiveThirtyEight gives Ms Lake a nearly two-in-three chance of becoming one of the most far-right governors in the country.
It’s a chilling prospect for advocates of democracy, one that appears to have left Mr Brnovich deeply frustrated.
“We as prosecutors deal in facts and evidence, and I’m not like the clowns who throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks,” Mr Brnovich said.
