Noted white supremacist Stephen Miller can add another loser to his flop of a political campaign that spent tens of millions of dollars on racist and transphobic ads across Arizona and more than a dozen other states. Following days of nail-biting ballot drops and counting, Democrat Katie Hobbs emerged as the state’s next governor, defeating Big Lie pusher Kari Lake.
Lake, a former newscaster, was among the slate of far-right candidates pushed by the MAGA base. But Lake stood out among them by going over and beyond in bear-hugging this abhorrent movement, at one point even regurgitating the 2015 speech where the insurrectionist former president called Mexican immigrants drug dealers, criminals, and “rapists”.
RELATED STORY: While votes are still being counted, it's clear Stephen Miller's racist political ads were a flop
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Lake’s “strident extremism defined her campaign from start to finish,” immigrant rights advocacy group America’s Voice said following her loss. “Her election denialism and her anti-immigrant extremism were the twin engines driving her message. Lake made the deadly white nationalist conspiracy about a so-called migrant invasion the centerpiece of her campaign, running multiple ads that promised to declare war on migrants as a day one priority.”
Lake’s platform was essentially state-endorsed lawlessness disguised as law and order, vowing to “send” migrants “back” despite immigration enforcement explicitly being the job of the federal government. Lake, like many other Republicans, also echoed the “invasion” rhetoric of racist mass killers. But Lake then one-upped these Republicans by repeating a portion of the racist, anti-immigrant speech the insurrection former president made during his campaign kick-off in June 2015. He lost countless deals, including from Macy’s, Univision, and NBCUniversal, following pressure from Latino and immigrant activists.
"The media might have a field day with this one, but I'm gonna just repeat something President Trump said a long time ago and it got him in a lot of trouble," Lake said in remarks reported by the Arizona Republic last month."They are bringing drugs. They are bringing crime, and they are rapists, and that's who's coming across our border. That's a fact." Lake proudly, unabashedly spewed these lies while campaigning at a church, standing behind a lectern emblazoned with a cross.
In the days before the midterms, Lake also mocked the assassination attempt on Speaker Nancy Pelosi. While she was not at home at the time, the attack left her husband, Paul, in critical condition. "’Nancy Pelosi, well, she’s got protection when she’s in D.C.—apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection,’ Lake said at a campaign event in Scottsdale, Arizona, sparking laughter from many in attendance,” NBC News reported last month.
Facing blowback for being a despicable piece of shit, Lake lied and claimed she wasn’t making light of the attempted assassination. We all saw the video, Kari. Lake then tried to turn her remarks into an attack on supposed “fake news media,” which she carried on into Election Day, when she arrogantly told assembled reporters she was going to be their “worst fricking nightmare for eight years,” apparently giving herself a second term before even confirming if she’d won the first one. I hope you kept the receipts for those curtains, Kari.
Back to Miller. He’s been assuring his racist base that a “red wave” was in store for Republicans, doing his part by launching hugely offensive ads that sobbed about supposed “anti-white bigotry” and pushed violent anti-immigrant imagery. Some were paid for by his America Legal First organization, while others were pushed by his associates at Citizens for Sanity. It was a massive waste of cash, with MAGA candidates going down in race after race.
There was no red tsunami, there was a red bloodbath, with Latino voters helping provide critical margins in Arizona, also helping defeat anti-immigrant creep Blake Masters.
“Even in an election cycle with fundamentals that were supposedly hostile to Democrats, Republicans lost due to GOP extremist candidates’ failure to articulate common sense solutions and connect with voters outside their hardcore and radicalized base,” said America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas. “On immigration, voters are tired of cheap stunts and dangerous rhetoric and want solutions, not scare tactics.”
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