Halloween is right around the corner, and if you’re someone who is scared of election deniers and right-wing extremists, there’s a new horror show to fear: The rise of Kari Lake.
Conservative writer Rich Lowry recently wrote that if she wins her gubernatorial bid, Lake would be “the favorite to become Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick should he win the Republican nomination again in 2024.” Lowry might be selling her short.
Lake doesn’t seem like the kind of person who enjoys playing Robin to someone else’s Batman, and I’m not the only one who sees this. “I would not be surprised to see her running for president or certainly flirting with it by summer,” former GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock of Virginia (a Trump critic) told me on Monday.
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The reason? “Lake has a Trump-sized ego [and] Trump-sized chips on her shoulder as a middling local TV anchor who didn’t get the respect she thought she deserved. She has a Trump-sized capacity for tapping into the conspiracies and lies and stoking the mob,” Comstock said, adding (in a follow-up missive): “I think she’s a dangerous anti-democratic demagogue!”
The comparison to Trump doesn't end there. Lake tells lies with impunity and picks fights with the media (although Lake is better at parrying their questions). After winning her Republican primary by attacking the legitimacy of the 2020 election, Lake chastised ABC News’ Jon Karl for daring to even bring up the topic. (Earlier this summer, Lake attacked Fox News’ Bret Baier for mentioning her friendship with a drag queen.)
Lake is like Trump in another way, too. She’s lucky. Having no political experience, she won her Republican primary with a plurality of the vote. She drove a stake through the heart of the Arizona establishment—and then promptly co-opted Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who had previously opposed her.
And now—fortuitously—she finds herself in a tight race with Arizona’s secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, who has been criticized for running a subdued, low-key campaign, and refusing to debate her.
Where there are differences with Trump, they seem to favor Lake.
Republicans love a minority or a woman who can say all the right-wing things they want to say. In this regard, Lake is a more sophisticated, better-dressed, smarter, version of Sarah Palin. She even calls herself a “mama bear.”
Americans are also fickle. We fetishize looks, youth, and newness. And because Republicans control the levers of Arizona state government, Lake might actually get some things passed. This would serve as a strong contrast to Trump who (a) isn’t in office, and (b) didn’t actually chalk up many legislative victories when he was in office.
I can imagine Lake in a debate with Trump, smiling at the camera, and saying, “Those of us who are on the front lines right now know these issues better than people who aren't out there now.”
While Lake appears to be on the rise, Trump may be slowly losing his grip on the party.
For months now, we have seen evidence that some MAGA voters are willing to swap Trump for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. A Pittsburgh-based focus group that aired on Monday’s Morning Joe showed four of the ten participants saying they would vote for DeSantis over Trump. (One of the participants who did not raise his hand, still chimed in, saying, “DeSantis is Trump with brown hair”).
To be sure, MAGA fans aren’t disavowing Trump—but they might be open to replacing him with a younger, more disciplined, more competent simulacrum.
Until recently, I thought DeSantis was the only option.
But ask yourself, who has more to lose from challenging Trump? Who’s more likely to have the guts to actually pull the trigger and run? And who’s more likely to beat him when they do run?
Lake is fearless. She feels like more of a gambler than DeSantis. And she’s playing with the house’s money. What does she have to lose?
It’s also possible that DeSantis has peaked too soon, and that he will be embroiled in legal battles. And while DeSantis and Lake are both fighters, Lake (like Trump) has the ability to turn on the charm. What is more, Florida is for all practical purposes now a red state. Lake could persuasively argue that she governs a swing state.
Indeed, she might have already begun outmaneuvering DeSantis. Just weeks after he traveled to Arizona to campaign for her, Lake appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show and attacked DeSantis’ decision to fly migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. “I’m not a fan of it, Tucker,” Lake said. “I mean, we’re just taking people here illegally who shouldn’t be here, moving them further inland.” Lake (like Trump) uses people to get ahead, and then discards them.
If Lake goes on to win her gubernatorial election in a couple weeks, it’s not just average Americans who are concerned about the fate of liberal democracy who have reason to fear. The most applicable analogy could be Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s classic tale about a scientist who creates a “being” that eventually kills him.
“I think the guys who promoted her are going to find out they’ve created a monster who will mow them over,” Comstock says. If that happens, this scary story will at least have a few laughs.
