CAVE CREEK, Arizona – Hundreds turned out Thursday evening in Cave Creek for a “Win the West Rally” at Frontier Town with Kari Lake.
The former gubernatorial candidate discussed how to defeat Democrats this fall, particularly how she intended to beat Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ-03) for Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat.
The saloon, which featured fake storefronts outside around the courtyard mimicking an old Western town, featured a jail with a cardboard cutout of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (R-CA-12) head behind bars.
Several other local America First officials and candidates spoke to start the event. State Representative Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale), who is also an election attorney, said the Democrats are looking for new ways to cheat in elections, now registering illegal aliens in homeless shelters to vote. On February 28, a federal judge struck down part of a new Arizona law that would have required noncitizens to show proof of citizenship before registering to vote.
State Representative Justin Heap (R-Mesa), who just entered the race for Maricopa County Recorder against incumbent Stephen Richer, said he was not “willing to let our state become a desert wasteland of Democratic policy.“ He emphasized election integrity, something Richer has been highly criticized over.
“The worst thing that happened in the last election cycle was 300,000 of our most active Republican voters did not vote,” he said. “That is a massive collapse in our competence and in our trust in our elections. We need to fix our elections in this state, and we cannot do it if we don’t have county recorders who are going to follow the law.”
State Senator Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), chair of the Arizona Freedom Caucus, spoke about the spiritual side, emphasizing how the Bible is a “roadmap” for times like this. “I know we still are a country on God’s side despite what the left says,” he said to resounding applause.
Abe Hamadeh, who is still battling his election loss to Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes by 280 votes, is running as a team with Lake, seeking to replace outgoing Representative Debbie Lesko (R-AZ-08). He said we are facing “a battle between good and evil. … These crooks are pillaging our country right before our eyes and we’re not going to take it anymore.”
Lake began her speech by reminding the crowd that the election is just 30 weeks away since that is when people begin receiving early ballots. Arizona has an “election month,” not an Election Day, and the results take “two weeks,” she said, rolling her eyes and blasting the process.
She said jokingly, “We’re going to … get every person we know — every man woman, child, dog, and saguaro cactus — out to vote in that election season.”
Lake clarified that she was joking since otherwise, “they’ll send these people after me. … I don’t want to cheat,” she said. “Actually, I want to root out the cheaters and I want them to be locked up.”
The Senate candidate pointed at the jail front at Frontier Town, joking how she’d like to send the cheaters “back a hundred years” since they would only survive a few hours.
Lake said she is running for the U.S. Senate since “everything is on the line.” She pointed out that Arizona is a key state for both the presidency since it is a swing state, and for retaining control of the U.S. Senate, since the composition is closely split between Democrats and Republicans, along with three independents. Lake is running to replace Kyrsten Sinema, an independent who left the Democratic Party after becoming a senator. Sinema is not running for reelection.
Coming from a career in broadcast media, Lake launched into her typical attacks on the mainstream media. She said she’s begun noticing that journalists are “dropping like flies.” “Not a day goes by where I don’t hear a story about another fake news reporter that has lied their way out of a job — literally lied their way out of a job, lied their way into oblivion,” she said.
She said they are being replaced by “brave courageous journalists who have stepped away from the propaganda operation.”
She added, “The American people have been lied to by the media in this country … The Washington elites have wheeled and dealed to enrich themselves. And it’s been at the expense of us and our families.”
Lake said she was “tired of watching these politicians put us last.”
The former broadcaster said corrupt people are going after her and former President Donald Trump hard because they cannot be bribed or blackmailed, alluding to former Arizona Republican Party Chair Jeff DeWit telling her that powerful people wanted to pay her to stay out of politics for two years.
“We don’t want our country run by a bunch of powerful corrupt people back East,” she said.
Lake told the crowd that a new phenomenon has arisen in Arizona due to the bad leadership on border security, “Dinnertime Bandits.” She said there are illegal immigrant gangs burglarizing homes that are so good at it that they are in and out within three minutes. She said there have already been hundreds of burglaries in Arizona by the gangs. When law enforcement arrests a few, more come back to their places to continue burglarizing.
“We haven’t had this level of despair since I was just a kid,” Lake said, referencing the years Democrat Jimmy Carter was president. “He almost looks like a genius compared to Joe Biden.”
She said Reagan beat him in the 1980 election in part due to the question, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
She said we’re in the “exact same boat” we were in that era — except “that boat under Biden is like the Titanic. And we’ve got the news media, rearranging the chairs on the Titanic acting like everything’s fine while the ship is going down.” However, the people will jump in the lifeboats in eight months and not go down with Biden, she said.
Lake said she heard a sad story from a local woman who was almost 80, lamenting the fact she might not have enough money in retirement, so she might have to return to work. Her 401k had “shriveled up like Joe Biden.” Lake said that was not right, retirees should be able to “enjoy their grandbabies.”
“I want you to enjoy your retirement. You worked for it and you deserve it,” the Senate candidate added.
She pointed out that it’s not just Republicans who don’t like Biden. She said the media doesn’t get a “discount card for gas and groceries,” and illegal gangs don’t check voter registration before they rob people. “We are all sitting ducks in this environment with Joe Biden,” she said.
Lake praised Trump as the “greatest president we’ve ever seen” and said she refers to MAGA as “common sense.”
She dismissed accusations that she deserted her lawsuit challenging her election loss in the gubernatorial race to Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs, calling it “media lies.” She announced a new legal action, filing a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court requesting to stop the use of voting machine tabulators.
Lake praised “brilliant” Hamadeh, who is facing several well-known Republicans in his primary race. Both Lake and Trump have endorsed Hamadeh, and polls show him well in the lead. Lake pointed out that Hamadeh didn’t “run for the hills” after the botched 2022 election but fought the results. Hamadeh has filed multiple lawsuits over the 2022 election.
Lake said voters need to “chuck a guy named Chuck,” referring to Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY). She said he is threatening to send U.S. troops to Ukraine if Congress doesn’t approve $90 billion for Ukraine. “We need to secure our own border, Chuck,” she said. “We’re not sending billions to Ukraine and we’re not sending our sons and daughters.”
She said if Democrats control the Senate, they will be able to block Trump’s presidential cabinet appointments and Supreme Court nominees.
Towards the end of her speech, Lake launched into criticism of Gallego. She noted that his district is “filled with people shooting up drugs, on the streets, living in tents; he has the fastest growing homeless population in his district.” He’s “more liberal than AOC” and “votes with Biden 100 percent of the time.”
Regarding his record on illegal immigration, Lake said, “This is a guy who has spent the entirety of his political career prying our border open. He’s gone so far as to even threaten ICE agents.” She relayed how Gallego warned ICE agents who deport illegal immigrants during the Trump administration that “they will not be safe” from future punishment when Democrats are back in office. Furthermore, not only does Gallego support amnesty and asylum for illegal immigrants, she said, but he wants to give them voting rights.
Lake said Gallego wanted to seize property from Americans who opposed COVID-19 restrictions. When a Marine complained about being required by the military to get the COVID-19 vaccine, Gallego told him on X to “shut the f*** up” and “deal with it.”
Gallego said he was “honored” to be endorsed by a George Soros-funded organization that wants to “dismantle and defund the police,” Lake said. She noted that he has marched in defund the police rallies.
She said he supported raising the gas tax by $1 and states banning gas-powered vehicles. She said he’s a carpetbagger since he lives in Washington, D.C., and even listed the D.C. address as his residence on federal forms.
Lake brought a mother on stage who lost her daughter to fentanyl. Identified as “Josephine,” the mother said her daughter thought she was taking half a pill of counterfeit Percocet. Lake said that only six grains of fentanyl — comparing it to six grains of salt — could kill someone, and a teaspoon could kill everyone at the rally. Josephine said she advises parents to tell their children never to take any drugs that do not come from a pharmacy and is working on getting legislation passed, which will be called the Ashley Dunn Act.
Lake ended the rally by stating that the turnout for this election will be so big that it will be “too big to rig” through election fraud. She welcomed others into the America First movement to achieve this victory, including people who weren’t Republicans “three months ago.” She said the country isn’t divided 50/50 as the media claims; instead, America First is a majority.
“If America goes down, the world goes down,” she said.
Lake did not mention Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, her only significant opponent in the primary. A poll released last month from Rasmussen Reports showed him 29 points behind Lake.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Kari Lake” by The Kari Lake.
