Former Arizona Attorney General candidate Abe Hamadeh endorsed former gubernatorial candidate and news anchor Kari Lake in her upcoming bid for U.S. Senate in Arizona during a podcast appearance on Thursday, declaring her to be “an incredible friend and ally” who will support former President Donald Trump and his agenda in Washington. D.C.
Hamadeh declared he intends to formally endorse Lake during an appearance on The Gateway Pundit‘s “TGP Recap” Thursday, telling reporter Jordan Conradson he was excited to see Lake take her “fight to Washington.”
“I will be endorsing Kari Lake for Senate,” Hamadeh told Conradson, stressing their close relationship. “She has taken so much fire and she is relentless, so I am incredibly proud to see her… take that fight to Washington.”
Hamadeh alluded to Lake’s close relationship with Trump, adding that the former president “is going to need his allies in DC in order to accomplish what he has to accomplish,” and declaring, “the Democrats are very scared” about Trump’s chances in 2024. This, said Hamadeh, “is why they’re trying to do everything they can to jail him before the election.”
Hamadeh added that legal cases against Trump, including those challenging his candidacy, are “why we need fighters like Kari Lake in the Senate,” because her interests are aligned “with the people, and the Constitution, and the laws of our country.”
Lake filed to run for Senate on Tuesdayand has scheduled a “Kari Lake Announcement Rally” in Phoenix on October 10. She is expected to enter the race with the support of a plurality of Arizona Republicans, as an August poll revealed 42 percent of primary voters would support her over Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb.
Should the popular Republican secure the party’s nomination, she will likely face a three-way race between Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ-03) and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ).
Sinema changed her party affiliation to independent last year but continues to caucus with the Democrats and accept Democratic committee assignments. While she has not officially declared a re-election campaign, a donor strategy memo obtained by the media suggested she intends to win re-election by courting Arizona’s independent and Republican voters while allowing Gallego to capture the majority of the state’s Democratic electorate.
Hamadeh continues to contest the 2022 election, which he narrowly lost to Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) by just 280 votes. Thousands of votes have not been counted, and Hamadeh recently requested a new lawsuit to continue his legal challenges, though an expedited trial was denied to the Arizona Republican.
“Right now, I’m focused entirely on my election lawsuit,” Hamadeh told Conradson. “There’s still 9,000 uncounted ballots, so I believe once the legal process is finally settled, they will remove Kris Mayes, so I will be declared the lawful attorney general.”
– – –
Tom Pappert is a reporter for The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Tom on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Abe Hamadeh” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0. Photo “Kari Lake” by Kari Lake.Â