Through her leadership PAC, which is a type of federally recognized fundraising and campaigning organization, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) released a new ad this week targeting Arizona Republican candidates Kari Lake and Mark Finchem.
Lake is running for governor in hopes of replacing outgoing Republican Doug Ducey, while Finchem is running for Secretary of State, where he would have relatively direct control over handling elections in Arizona. Both Lake and Finchem have aligned themselves with conspiracy theories about U.S. elections. In available audio of a phone conversation between Trump and Blake Masters, the GOP Senate pick in this year’s Arizona Senate race, the former president praised Lake’s commitment to promoting election lies. “If you want to get across the line, you’ve got to go stronger on that one thing,” Trump told Masters. “That was the one thing you had a lot of complaints about. Look at Kari… If they say, ‘How is your family?’ She says, ‘The election was rigged and stolen.’ You’ll lose if you go soft. You’re going to lose that base.” Masters replied he wasn’t “going soft.” Audio of the call was included in a Tucker Carlson-tied documentary about Masters.
As for Cheney, she was direct. “I don’t know that I have ever voted for a Democrat,” she said in footage highlighted by the 30-second ad. “But if I lived in Arizona, I absolutely would. You have a candidate for governor, Kari Lake, you have a candidate for Secretary of State, Mark Finchem, both of whom have said that they will only honor the results of an election if they agree with it. And if you care about the survival of our Republic, we cannot give people power who will not honor elections. We must have elected officials who honor that responsibility.” Cheney’s PAC was spending more than $500,000 placing the ad in Arizona, according to available info. If Trump runs for the presidency again, as he has suggested he will, Cheney will likely return to campaigning in hopes of helping stop him. “I certainly will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump isn’t anywhere close to the Oval Office,” she said at a September event hosted by The Texas Tribune.
See the new ad below:
