The race between Trump-endorsed Kari Lake and U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) for incumbent Kyrsten Sinema‘s Senate seat is predictably heated.
[Note: Sinema has yet to announce if she’s running for re-election. The Democrat-turned-Independent Senator has until April 1 to file and would need approximately 42,000 valid signatures from Arizona voters to boot.]
According to a recently released Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey, Gallego is “leading by 6 points, with 36 percent support to 30 percent for Lake and 21 percent for Sinema, while 13 percent were undecided.” And if Sinema doesn’t run, “Gallego’s lead expands to 7 points, 46 percent to 39 percent, with 15 percent undecided.”
Today, Lake released an attack ad (below) which condemns Gallego’s acceptance of the Indivisible Project’s endorsement. She claims the organization wants to “defund police” and captioned video: “This is horrific…My Dem opponent is as evil as it gets.”
In the video, Lake echoes the words of 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton when she says: “When people show you who they are, you must believe them.”
(Clinton herself borrowed the words from the late poet Maya Angelou, who spoke at Bill Clinton‘s first inauguration, which means that Lake is now quoting Angelou, an unlikely pairing without doubt.)
This is horrific…
My Dem opponent is as evil as it gets.
Please watch this & share
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) February 21, 2024
During her unsuccessful 2016 run for President against Donald Trump, Clinton used Angelou’s words verbatim, following it up with: “I think it’s fair to say Donald Trump has shown us who he is.”
More recently Clinton spoke out against the current GOP frontrunner Trump after he said he would be dictator for “day one” if re-elected, using a similar warning.
Responding to Sen. Brian Schatz’s (D-Hawaii) post on X: “Trump is now repeatedly saying he’s going to be a dictator on day one and I don’t think we should keep asking what that means. That’s what he means,” Clinton replied: “Take him at his word.”
Trump’s refusal to commit to the peaceful transfer of power is the behavior of a desperate would-be dictator who’d cling to office even if it meant destroying our democracy.
It’s pathetic. But because he is the president, we should take his threat seriously.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 24, 2020