Former Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake will announce a bid for the Senate against incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
According to the report, Lake, who lost a bid for the governorship in the state in 2022, told the Journal in an interview that she plans to announce her Senate run Oct. 10 during a rally in Arizona to take on Sinema, an independent elected as a Democrat in 2018.
"We need to get a senator in there who is going to fight back and put America first," Lake said in an interview.
Lake lost her 2022 bid for governor against Democrat Katie Hobbs, but continues to fight the results in court due to alleged irregularities in Maricopa County, the state's most populated area.
Sinema changed her party affiliation to independent in December, 2022, and has not yet formally said she is seeking reelection as a third-party candidate, but is setting up the infrastructure for the run, the Journal reported.
"I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington," Sinema wrote in an opinion article at the time. "Nothing's going to change about me."
Democrat Rep. Ruben Gallego, who has announced his run for the seat, would make it a three-way race in the mostly red state, which could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate, the report said.
According to the Journal, Lake has spent the last year stumping for former President Donald Trump in his bid to reclaim the White House in 2024 and has been rumored to be a top possibility as his vice-presidential pick.
If she becomes the GOP nominee in the Senate race, it will effectively take her out of the mix for the second spot on the presidential ticket.
The report said that the only current GOP rival in the race, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, has not gained traction among voters, and former Senate GOP candidate Blake Masters, who lost in his attempt to unseat Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly in 2022 may have decided against another try after Trump called him to explain why Lake might be the better GOP candidate in the race.
Lake told the Journal that she wants to meet with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and the rest of the GOP leadership team to discuss her candidacy.
"I'd like to meet them to show them that I'm a very reasonable person who loves my state," she said in the report.
Charles Kim ✉
Charles Kim, a Newsmax general assignment writer, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years in reporting on news and politics.
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