Kari Lake tries a new tactic: mend fences

Conciliatory messages on social media. Open invitations for coffee. Zoom calls invite participants to unload.

Even before she announced her campaign for Senate in Arizona, Kari Lake, a Republican and favorite of former President Donald J. Trump, was on a mission to make peace. Her failed bid for governor two years ago was marked by her fervent embrace of Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, and by her relentless attacks on party establishment figures who criticized her for that dishonesty. But as she looks to win a seat from Democrats in a key presidential battleground, Ms. Lake is courting former enemies and mending fences.

In addition to her public overtures, Ms. Lake has in recent months privately reached out to establishment Republicans in the state — including some she has personally offended — seeking their support. The list includes Doug Ducey and Jan Brewer, two former state governors; Karrin Taylor Robson and former Rep. Matt Salmon, two of her top rivals in 2022; and Meghan McCain, the daughter of longtime Arizona Sen. John McCain, according to six people with knowledge of the outreach, some of whom insisted on anonymity to discuss private interactions. In some cases, Ms. Lake has expressed remorse for her past behavior, one of the people said.

“There was some damage done by that primary that clearly spilled over into the general election,” said Daniel Scarpinato, a Republican consultant in Arizona who worked as Mr. Ducey’s top aide years ago. “I think you’re clearly seeing a genuine effort to get more Republicans into the fold.”

Ms. Lake, a former television host and 2022 political newcomer, waged a scorched-earth campaign to win the Republican primary for governor. She appealed to Trump’s supporters by defending his baseless theories of election fraud, while tearing apart her opponents. She accused Ms. Robson said she was “trying to buy the election with her 95-year-old husband’s millions,” and called Mr. Ducey “do nothing Ducey.”

Perhaps most critically, she angered the family of Mr. McCain, who died in 2018, by declaring that her political rise “drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine” and by voters in the state who admired him to invite ‘to hell.” The division led some Republicans to refuse to support Ms. Lake even if it meant a Democrat would win.

She says now her insults to Mr. McCain were “in jest.”

“Things have gotten so much worse under Joe Biden that we are at a point where we no longer have time to let arguments from the past get in the way if we want to move forward as a country,” Ms. Lake said in an interview in Phoenix. last month. She described herself as someone “who enjoys talking to people and bringing people together.”

If Ms. Lake wins her primary, she can expect a close race against Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is essentially running unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Ms. Lake has a primary opponent, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, but she leads him by a wide margin in the polls ahead of the July 30 contest. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a former Democrat who left the party in 2022, is not running. for re-election.

Some early signs suggest her efforts are paying off, at least at the national level. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which works to elect Republicans to the Senate, endorsed her, and Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the third-largest member of the Senate Republican leadership, campaigned with her in Phoenix last month. She met with Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the longtime Republican leader, on Capitol Hill on Wednesday before attending a fundraiser with about 20 senators in Washington.

Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, said in an interview that he also supported Ms. Lake and that she had “matured” in her approach.

Yet her success seems mixed at home, where some of her overtures were rebuffed. Ms. Lake sent Ms. McCain, whom she once compared to a “rabid dog,” a public message on X last month inviting her to lunch. Mrs. McCain replied, “NO PEACE,” interrupted by a vulgarity.

“These are wounds that cannot heal for me and my family as people like Kari Lake and Trump continue to humiliate my family and my father,” Mrs. McCain said in an interview. “What she has asked of me is to give her cover for her horrible comments and her horrible statements about my family, and I would rather die than do that.”

Ducey is not expected to make an endorsement in the Republican primary, according to a person familiar with his plans. A recent conversation between Ms Lake and Ms Robson was productive, according to the two women’s advisers, but nothing was decided.

By her own account, Ms. Lake’s efforts to make peace included meeting with skeptical Republicans at their offices, taking them out for coffee or drinks and making phone calls. In an interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington last month, Ms. Lake said some conversations had been difficult, sometimes describing intense phone and Zoom calls that started with outrage from the other side. She has also held Zoom meetings to court Republican donors and advisers, and attended a luncheon last month with members of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce.

“I am willing to continue extending the olive branches. If someone turns it down and says, ‘No, I’m not interested,’ that’s fine,” she said in the Phoenix interview. “The olive branch is not there yet. My door is still open.”

But new reservations about Ms. Lake have also emerged among some grassroots Republicans, many of whom are outspoken supporters of Mr. Trump. Many were stunned by the release in January of an audio recording that Ms. Lake secretly captured during a conversation she had last year with Jeff DeWit, the chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, in which Mr. DeWit appeared to offer her bribes to convince her not to run for Senate. In the recording, which Mr. DeWit said was “selectively edited,” Ms. Lake can be heard rejecting his request.

Mr. DeWit resigned shortly after the recording surfaced, and Ms. Lake called the episode an example of her independence. Some state party members reacted angrily, expressing concern about other private conversations Ms. Lake may have recorded. Ms Lake was greeted with boos at a meeting to elect a new chairman.

“Is this really the way we should all be behaving, even as Republicans? To take in someone you trust?’ asked Jeanne Kentch, chair of the Mohave County Republican Party. “I love Kari, don’t get me wrong. But I think that’s what people are concerned about.”

Ms Lake denies that she regularly records private conversations. Still, Mr. Lamb, who is far behind in fundraising, senses an opening. Mr. Lamb is the only candidate who can “appeal to all Republicans, conservative independents and disaffected Democrats,” said Ed Morabito, a senior adviser to his campaign.

Despite a renewed desire for party unity, Ms. Lake has not shied away from extreme positions. She continued to advance baseless theories about voter fraud in news media appearances, telling reporters in Washington last week that “we really had a rigged election in Arizona.” (After losing to Ms. Hobbs, Ms. Lake falsely claimed fraud and filed fruitless lawsuits in attempts to overturn the outcome.) She also sympathized with and appeared alongside people convicted of crimes related to their participation in the action of January 6, 2021. attack on the Capitol.

However, she has not made these positions the centerpiece of her Senate campaign — one of the few deviations from her campaign for governor. On abortion, which she once called the “ultimate sin,” she now opposes a federal ban.

“Kari Lake will say or do anything to gain power,” Gallego spokeswoman Hannah Goss said in a statement.

And for some Republicans, the scars left by Ms. Lake may be too deep. Sharon Harper, the CEO of real estate company Plaza Companies and close friends with Senator McCain, endorsed Ms. Hobbs in 2022 and has no plans to support Ms. Lake this campaign.

“I think people understand who Kari Lake is,” Ms. Harper said. “We’ve seen what she showed, and I don’t think it changes an opinion when someone says, ‘I didn’t really mean what I said.’”

Michael C. Bender And Kayla Guo reporting contributed.