Kari Lake Shanks Blake Masters By Endorsing His Primary Opponent After He Announces Run For Congress
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Kari Lake, the failed 2022 GOP candidate for governor of Arizona and 2024 U.S. Senate candidate, quickly endorsed Blake Masters’s GOP primary opponent after Masters announced a run for Congress on Thursday.
“I’m running for Congress, to fight for Arizona’s 8th,” Masters said on Twitter. “Biden has failed. We need Trump back. We need to stop inflation, Build the Wall, avoid WW3, and secure Arizona’s water future. We need to fight for our families.” Masters’s announcement ended speculation he may challenge Lake in the GOP Senate primary.
A few hours later, Lake sent out a press release endorsing Masters’s main Republican opponent Abe Hamadeh.
Hamaden ran for attorney general in 2022, while Masters ran for U.S. Senate. Lake, Masters, and Hamadeh regularly campaigned together and all three were main boosters of former President Donald Trump and his widely debunked claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
At one point during the election, Trump even called Masters and chided him for not being more fervent in his election denialism. “Look at Kari, Kari is winning with very little money and if they say, ‘How is your family?’ She says, ‘The election was rigged and stolen.’ You’ll lose if you go soft, you gonna lose that base,” Trump during the call, which was caught on tape.
Lake called Hamadeh “a relentless fighter for Arizonans” in her endorsement, adding:
He is truly our Happy Warrior. Abe is the son of immigrants, an Army veteran who served overseas, a former prosecutor, and like me, Abe NEVER backs down. Abe embodies the American dream.
Abe lived and went to three schools in the district, and he’s running for Congress in Arizona’s 8th District to give back to the community that made him the man he is today. I’m proud to call Abe a friend, and honored to give him my endorsement for the United States Congress.
Hamadeh and Masters (who was backed in 2022 by controversial GOP mega-donor Peter Thiel) will compete to replace Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) who announced this month she would not seek reelection.
