'Schizophrenic': Kari Lake's claim to be AZ governor creates unique problem for Senate run

Failed pro-Trump Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has formally announced her candidacy for Senate, setting up what could potentially be a three-way race against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego if independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema tries to seek a second term.

There's just one issue: Lake still continues to insist, despite the vote having been certified against her and a long string of court losses, that she is legally the governor of Arizona.

Speaking on The Arizona Republic's The Gaggle podcast, host Mary Jo Pitzl and political analyst Ron Hansen walked through all the awkward implications of Lake's continued election denial on the current contest.

"Kari Lake is still in court arguing that she was cheated out of the governor's seat in last year's election," said Pitzl. "She claims she's the duly elected governor of Arizona. Does she need to resign that position that she believes she holds?"

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"Yeah," said Hansen. "Boy, this is open to all kinds of questions about legally, what can you do? What is required and such."

"I am not a lawyer. I can't pretend to know what is required in these circumstances," he continued. "But just in the court of public opinion, there is something that is at least bothersome about maintaining litigation that says you believe you won the governor's race and rhetoric that says that you consider yourself the winner of the gubernatorial race and then at the same time pivoting to a Senate race that would take you somewhere else entirely. So there is this sort of schizophrenic quality about the late campaign approach at the moment that in court she wants to be governor on the campaign trail, she wants to be a senator."

"And this is amid speculation that seems to have died down a bit, but had been pretty rampant for a while, that she also wanted to be the vice president for the next Trump administration," Hansen added. "So for Kari Lake, there's this sort of giant question of what does she want to be?"

Listen to the podcast at the link here.