Trump protege Kari Lake falters in bid to become Arizona governor

Kari Lake was being touted as a running-mate should her mentor try for the White House again.

Kari Lake speaks to supporters on election night in Scottsdale, Arizona. Picture: AFP

As Kari Lake’s face flashed up on the big screen, a supporter at her election night party observed that the would-be governor of Arizona was increasingly looking and sounding like Donald Trump.

That is not a coincidence. Ms Lake, 53, a former news anchor-turned-Make America Great Again evangelical, has described herself proudly as “Trump in a dress” and is being touted as a running-mate should her mentor try for the White House again.

She stepped down from her job at a local Phoenix news station in March last year and her remarkable rise to prominence has been built on skills honed in the studio. With perfect hair and expensive clothes, many observers have noted that the married mother of two is the attractive face of the MAGA movement.

Raised in rural Iowa to a struggling Catholic family, Ms Lake was the youngest of nine children. She spent 22 years in journalism and quit after losing faith in the profession during the Covid-19 pandemic.

She began election day in bullish mood and many polls predicted she would prevail over Democratic opponent Katie Hobbs, the Arizona secretary of state. However, across the country the so-called red wave failed to materialise and, as election week drags on, Ms Lake’s race is still too close to call, raising the prospect of a devastating defeat that would surely dash any hopes of joining a Trump ticket.

Whether Ms Lake would ­accept the result is another matter entirely. As the hours ticked by at her election night party at a three-star hotel and resort in Scottsdale, Ms Lake took to the stage to reassure her supporters that victory was within reach.

She was speaking beneath nets filled with red, white and blue balloons, ready to be released at the moment Ms Lake was named governor of Arizona. If that moment never comes, the political career of a woman touted as the future of the MAGA movement will have been prematurely deflated.

The Times