Ducey is part of a growing effort among establishment Republicans to pit little-known housing developer Karrin Taylor Robson against Trump-backed former TV news anchor Kari Lake. Other prominent Republicans, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have also rallied behind Robson in recent days. The push is a reminder of how many top Republicans rallied around Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in the final stretch of his ultimately successful bid to fend off a Trump-endorsed primary challenger. Few states have been as central to Trump’s election lies as Georgia and Arizona, the two closest 2020 battlegrounds where he pushed aggressively to overturn the results and was angered when Kemp and Ducey refused to follow through. Trump has already faced a setback in Georgia, and the Aug. 2 race in Arizona is among his last chances to settle scores and install allies to carry states that could prove crucial if he decides to run again in 2024. “In Arizona, people are independent-minded, just like in Georgia, and they choose the person they think will be best for the responsibility,” Ducey told The Associated Press. “In Georgia, the voters said Brian Kemp, and I hope in Arizona, they’ll say Karen Taylor Robson.” As an incumbent candidate for re-election, Kemp had an advantage over his primary opponent, David Perdue, and ultimately defeated him by nearly 52 percentage points. With no incumbent on the ballot — Ducey faces term limits — the GOP contest in Arizona will likely be much closer. But what once looked like an insurmountable lead for Lake could turn into a more competitive finish. With early voting already underway, Robson is drawing on her family’s vast fortune to drown out Lake, who, despite Trump’s support, has been slow to raise funds. Robson had outscored Lake by more than 5 to 1 since late June. Final maneuvering by some top GOP figures could prove important in a close race. In addition to Ducey and Christie, Robson has lined up the support of former U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon, who dropped out of the governor’s race and endorsed her. Meanwhile, the Border Patrol union broke with Trump and backed Robson, citing in part earlier statements by Lake who supported a path to citizenship for people living in the country illegally. Former Vice President Mike Pence, who notably broke with Trump in Georgia and campaigned alongside Kemp, has yet to pick a side in Arizona. For her part, Lake is an unlikely MAGA champion. A well-known former local news anchor who donated to Barack Obama and for years hung out with drag queens at a gay bar near the station, Lake was once an opponent of Trump’s policies. But she’s risen to the top of the field since walking away from her three-decade TV career, declaring that “journalism is dead” and taking a sledgehammer to a bunch of TVs. He built on the strong connection he had built with viewers in the Phoenix media market over 27 years with the local Fox affiliate and forged a uniquely strong bond with the base that propelled Trump to the White House in 2016 and still doesn’t believe him. . lost in 2020. Even Trump seemed impressed by the applause her name inspired when he mentioned it during a rally in Phoenix last year. He approved her shortly after. She, in turn, adopted his combative style, his narrative about the 2020 election — he falsely says it was corrupt and stolen — and his hard-line approach to border security. She has distanced herself from her close ties to John McCain’s family and is now feuding with the late US senator’s children. “We’re either going to go the way of the past, which is the McCain mob running the show, or we’re going to go with America first,” Lake told a crowd of hundreds at a Tucson country-western bar last week. Many arrived over an hour early and waited in the Southern Arizona heat for a chance to get in. Lake, 52, regularly criticizes reporters who try to question her and posts the video on social media. Last year, he said he wants to put cameras in classrooms to monitor teachers, noting the backlash over the right to teach race and history in public schools. If elected, he says, he would immediately invoke an untested legal theory that illegal immigration constitutes an “invasion” of the United States and gives the governor war powers to remove people from the country without due process in immigration courts. Since Robson and her allies began executing the press, Lake has claimed without evidence that “they may be trying to set the stage for another theft”. “They’ve been such RINOs for so long, and I don’t believe they have our country as a priority,” said Rosa Alfonso, a 60-year-old speech pathologist in Tucson. “This is a big deal.” Robson, 57, is making her first run for office, though she has lifelong ties to Republican Party politics. His father and brother had been elected as Republicans. A real estate development attorney, he has been at the center of the suburban sprawl that has fueled the phenomenal growth of the Phoenix area. Ducey appointed her to the board that oversees Arizona’s three public universities, her most important public role before stepping down to run for governor. “These are serious times,” Robson said during a recent discussion. “We need a serious candidate with a track record of achievement.” Her husband, homebuilder Ed Robson, 91, is one of the state’s wealthiest residents, amassing a fortune as a master planning retirement communities. He says the 2020 election was “unfair,” but stopped short of calling it rigged. Like Lake, she runs like a hawk on the border. She calls her opponent “Fake Lake,” highlighting a $350 donation she gave to Obama’s 2008 campaign, though Robson herself has contributed large amounts to Democrats. “It’s all an act,” Ducey said of Lake. “The campaign he’s running is nothing like the life he’s lived for the past three decades, nor the interactions he’s had with me. He’s putting on a show. We’ll see how many will buy it.”
