For Kari Lake, it all comes down to tonight.
This is make-or-break night for the candidate who slashed and burned her way through the 17-month campaign en route to this moment.
She didn’t need – or apparently want – moderate Republican voters or independents as she marched ever onward, onward, onward with her America First “movement”.
And thus far, it appears, she isn’t getting them.
Consider this, from Saturday’s release of votes in Maricopa County:
Rachel Mitchell, the Republican candidate for Maricopa County, gained 9,059 votes over her Democratic opponent. Lake gained only 3,001 over Hobbs.
As red waves go, it was more like pinkish trickle – one that should set off alarms in “Karizona,” given that most of the ballots released on Saturday came from Election Day early vote drop-offs in Republican strongholds in north Phoenix and the East Valley.
Lake will fare better in the Sunday evening vote drop, as more heavily Republican areas report in. But with just 266,000 of the 2.5 million ballots left to count, the window is sliding south for the pride of the ultra-MAGA movement.
Before Saturday’s drop, Lake needed 54.2% of the remaining vote to catch up to Katie Hobbs, according to Paul Bentz, pollster for HighGround.
Now she needs 56.5%.
On Tuesday, as she has throughout the race, Lake predicted she’d win in a landslide. In the days to follow, as she trailed in the vote, she made the rounds of conservative media to sow doubt about the results, even as she continued to assure her voters that her victory is “inevitable.”
“America & Arizona: We have the brightest & best attorneys in the Nation, right here on the ground in Arizona,” she tweeted on Friday. “Every ballot has eyes on it. GOP Ballots (Election Day) ballots start dropping tonight. Keep your Champagne cold, our votes are about to start.”
Since then Hobbs has slightly widened her lead.
And Lake has gone largely silent on social media.
For Lake, it all comes down to tonight’s vote.
Me? I’m wondering whether she’s thinking at all right now of the late John McCain, a man she once called an “icon” and more recently “a loser.”
A few days after her primary election win, she stood at at a CPAC summit in Dallas to celebrate her victory.
“We drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine,” she proclaimed, to wild cheers of the ultra-MAGA crowd.
On the Friday before the general election, she sneered at “the party of McCain” during a campaign event, adding, “Boy, Arizona has delivered some losers, haven’t they?”
“We don’t have any McCain Republicans in here, do we?” she asked.
“Well, get the hell out!” Lake told them.
Thus far, it appears they’ve done just that.
Tonight should tell all.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Today is make or break for Kari Lake. Do I hear John McCain laughing?
