Kari Lake’s critics hail her loss in Arizona court: “Merry Christmas to us!”

Critics of Kari Lake celebrated Saturday after a judge dismissed her lawsuit, which she claimed showed evidence of voter fraud during Arizona’s gubernatorial race during last month’s midterm elections.

Lake — a Republican who blamed voter fraud for her loss — filed a lawsuit in early December alleging voter fraud, which she narrowly lost to her Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. Lake, who was backed by former President Donald Trump, claimed she did in fact win by 400,000 to 500,000 votes but provided no evidence to back it up.

On Saturday, Maricopa County Chief Justice Peter Thompson ruled that Lake’s legal team failed to present “clear and compelling” evidence of wrongdoing by Arizona election officials. Thompson wrote in his decision that the state’s electoral system was not “perfect” but “more than adequate to comply with the law and conduct a valid election”.

Lake’s critics then celebrated her loss on social media, praising the verdict for confirming Hobbs’ victory. Hobbs defeated Lake by less than 1 percentage point, winning 1,287,891 votes to Lake’s 1,270,744 votes in one of the closest races of the Midterms.

Harvard legal scholar Laurence Tribe called the verdict “good,” but not unexpected.

“Kari Lake is as wrong as can be, her lawsuit as frivolous as any,” he tweeted.

Writer Tim Miller tweeted: “Merry Christmas to us!”

“Like her mentor, she will never acknowledge the truth. She lost,” political adviser David Axelrod tweeted, referring to Trump, who also attributed his 2020 defeat to widespread voter fraud without preventing evidence.

Attorney Bradley Moss tweeted: “Kari Lake knew she lost. She didn’t care. She knows, like Trump, that her base is full of ignorant and gullible jerks who will fill her coffers so she can continue her martyr scam for months. She uses these people because they are too ignorant to see the scam.”

MeidasTouch, a pro-democracy Twitter account, mocked Lake for the decision, tweeting, “Just a quick reminder for Kari Lake: Katie Hobbs will be your governor.”

After the verdict, Lake vowed to appeal. write on twitter that their lawsuit “has given the world evidence proving that our elections are conducted outside the law.”

Her loss comes after a difficult couple of weeks for Arizona Republicans, who suffered courtroom defeats in two other recent court cases challenging the results of the midterm elections.

On Friday, Maricopa County Judge Lee Jantzen ruled against a lawsuit filed by GOP attorney general nominee Abraham Hamadeh, who lost to Democrat Kris Mayes by just 511 votes.

In the secretary of state race, Maricopa County Judge Melissa Julian ruled against GOP nominee Mark Finchem’s similar lawsuit, writing that none of his allegations amounted to “misconduct” sufficient to warrant surviving the dismissal. Finchem lost by more than 100,000 votes to his democratic challenger Adrian Fontes.

However, Republicans did not contest Democrat Mark Kelly’s victory in the closely watched Senate race. Kelly defeated Trump-backed Republican Blake Masters by nearly 5 percentage points.

NWeek reached out to Lake’s campaign for further comment.