Less than a week after Democratic victories across Arizona, former broadcast journalist and far-right two-time Republican nominee for governor and US Senate Kari Lake has already begun calling the results fraudulent—without evidence.
Voter fraud is extremely rare nationwide. In Arizona, fraud made up 0.0000845% of ballots cast over 25 years, according to a 2024 Brookings analysis of data from the conservative Heritage Foundation, and none of those cases changed an election’s outcome.
Democrats won control of the Arizona House, Senate, and governor’s office on Nov. 3 for the first time in 60 years. Lake’s claims echo the ones she spent years making after her 2022 loss. This time, some prominent Arizona Republicans are publicly rejecting them.
Lake, who previously lost her bids against Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) in 2022 and 2024, didn’t lose quietly. After her 2022 loss, Lake refused to accept the results, instead calling them fraudulent while offering no evidence.
“I am the lawful governor of Arizona. The current occupant of the governor’s office is just a squatter,” Lake wrote in her 2023 book, “Unafraid: Just Getting Started.”
She even went to court to overturn the results, but lost and refused to acknowledge defeat. In 2025, she testified under oath, deflecting when asked if she had lost. Instead, Lake said the outcome was “certified” for Gallego, without overtly saying she lost. She also previously boosted President Donald Trump’s claims of mass voter fraud in 2020.
Now Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Jamaica, a nomination that has stalled in the US Senate, Lake is doubling down on fraud claims after her party’s historic defeat on Nov. 3. Her first claim came on Election Day, when she pointed to a brief power outage at a Laveen polling site and suggested Republicans vote elsewhere.
“My advice is to head to the most liberal part of town and vote there,” Lake wrote in a Nov. 3 post on X. “There will be fewer power outages, printer problems, tabulator issues, etc.. in the liberal areas. I am basing this on the shenanigans they pulled in 2022 where all of the issues were concentrated in Conservative areas.”
The site reopened within minutes, before voting was scheduled to begin, and Maricopa County Elections Department Adrian Borunda told AFP the fraud claims “are false.”
Incoming House Speaker Rep. Oscar De Los Santos (D-Phoenix) called out Lake’s claims in a post on X that same day.
“This is beyond stupid (unsurprisingly) and reckless,” De Los Santos wrote on Nov. 3. “The Vote Center at the Laveen Elementary School District Office opened on time at 6am. And Laveen is in my district — very blue! Stuff like this is why Arizona voters rejected you multiple times.”
But Lake didn’t stop there. After the results showed Republican defeats nationwide, Lake called the GOP wipeout “cheating.”
“We are all sick of election cheating. 2020, ‘22, ‘24, ‘26, it must end,” Lake wrote in a Nov. 4 post. “Reform elections now.”
Lake even turned on Senate President Warren Petersen, the GOP nominee for attorney general who lost to Democrat Kris Mayes. After Petersen wrote on X Nov. 5 that Republicans had “no time” for infighting, Lake replied with a call to investigate.
“Warren, we MUST inspect this election. The numbers make NO sense in AZ, Texas, Kansas, Mississippi and many other places,” Lake wrote in a Nov. 5. post on X. “We can’t keep ignoring this election fraud or we will lose our republic. Don’t you agree??”
Petersen, himself a 2020 election denier, did not reply to Lake’s post, and he has yet to publicly concede to Mayes, despite saying on election night he would accept responsibility if he lost.
“I will completely accept responsibility. I’m not gonna blame this loss on somebody else,” Petersen said Nov. 3.
Is Trump flirting with election denialism too?
The president initially held off on his usual claims of voter fraud, instead writing in a Truth Social post that had he been on the ticket, Republicans would have done better.
“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he wrote in a Nov. 3 post on Truth Social.
But on Nov. 9, Trump questioned whether the election was honest. That came after he told The New York Times on election night he was “absolutely willing” to accept the results, and after he reposted Truth Social posts questioning the outcome over the weekend.
“Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest. How could the Polls be so wrong??? Some early voting ‘dumps’ were so large that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people went to vote,” Trump wrote in a Nov. 9 post. “It’s all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter! President DJT.”
Which Arizona Republicans are pushing back?
While the president has spent the past decade making false claims about widespread fraud, he appears to have fewer political allies in his corner willing to do so this time around.
Maricopa County Supervisor Thomas Galvin, a Republican, told fellow Republicans to stop promoting election fraud claims, which he blamed for the party’s losses.
“To my fellow Republicans who have been trafficking these lies for the past 6 years, you need to stop,” Galvin said on Nov. 4. “Because you have led to the destruction of the Republican party here in Arizona and frankly around the country. I have seen it first hand and frankly, it is disgusting.”
Elijah Norton, who lost his race for state treasurer to Democrat Nick Mansour, conceded Nov. 5 and pushed back on fraud claims on X.
“You are wrong. I’m not “falling in line”. WE LOST, I’ll say it again WE LOST,” Norton said in a Nov. 5 post on X. “It wasn’t a blue wave it was a blue wipeout. The answer is to re-evaluate, re-tool and do better if we want to win again. Not say stupid stuff like that.”
Still, Lake has continued making posts calling the results fraudulent, but has yet to offer evidence.
“Our elections are a disgrace and a joke,” Lake wrote in a Nov. 4 post on X.
