Carrie Lake lost her bid to become Arizona governor to Democrat Katie Hobbs, repeating the national rebuke Republicans received from voters in last Tuesday’s midterm elections.  Despite the conservatives’ poor showing in Arizona, Lake, an avowed election denier, is hinting that foul play is to blame for her loss, and MAGA pundits are following her lead. 

“Arizonas know BS when they see it.”  Lake tweeted shortly after major news outlets called the race against her. 

Former President Donald Trump, a particularly big fan of Lake’s campaign, took to the Truth Social early Tuesday morning to suggest the election was unfairly decided.  “Wow,” he wrote, “They just took the election from Lake Kari.  It’s really bad out there!” 

When announcing Fox News’ decision to call the Arizona governor’s race in favor of Hobbs, a less than pleased Sean Hannity quipped that Hobbs should have been “relieved” of her position as secretary of state.  Fox & Friends was none too pleased the next morning, mocking the result while agreeing with Lake’s tweet that Arizonans “know BS when they see it.”

when the “straight news” reporter shows up and goes to unheard of levels of confrontation remember fox news called az governor race pic.twitter.com/O64T9tqmBl — John Whitehouse+ (@existentialfish) November 15, 2022 Lake made similar remarks on Fox News shortly before the race was announced, questioning how it would be possible for Hobbs to “certify her own election” despite the fact that the election process was a “failure.”

The Washington Post reported that former Trump adviser and Big Lie bullhorn Steve Bannon was “clear” about Lake’s declining prospects in his campaign communications, but publicly insisted to viewers of his show that Election Day was in trouble by scanning ballots in a subset of Maricopa.  County polling places were indicative of “active voter disenfranchisement in Arizona,” despite various in-person voting alternatives available.  Bannon stated that it is necessary to “de-certify.” 

Looking beyond certification to the upcoming inauguration of a new governor, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk asked guests on his show what the process would be to recall Governor-elect Hobbs in Arizona. 


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Several commentators claimed that it “made no mathematical sense” for Lake to lose when incumbent State Treasurer Kimberly Yee won her re-election campaign.  Lee emerged as an outlier among conservative performers in Arizona, where candidates fell in big races.  Most notably, US Senate candidate Blake Masters lost his bid to unseat incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly, and Trump-friendly Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem was also narrowly defeated. 

Early Tuesday morning, the words “DO NOT GIVE UP” were trending on Twitter.  The label was filled with advice from conservative pundits to Lake imploring her to bear with the election results.  As awareness of the tag spread, it was picked up by users who point out that electoral denial and a “heads you win, tails you lose” approach to poll results was likely a factor in the poor results for Arizona Republicans.