Kari Lake Inspired Rally Flops When Barely Anyone Shows Up

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Supporters of this year’s slate of Republican candidates in statewide elections in Arizona showed up outside of a county headquarters for officials responsible for elections in Maricopa County on Saturday.

An estimate from the Arizona Republic put the size of the crowd that eventually assembled at around 200 — although millions of votes were cast across the state as a whole and hundreds of thousands reside in Maricopa County alone. The specific location where the demonstration took place was identified as the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, and those who were present expressed support for several losing Republican candidates and claims of voter fraud. Trump himself has also already promoted allegations of malfeasance in Maricopa County’s elections this year, and he has called for a do-over. On Saturday, demonstrators apparently marched around the elections building seven times, in reference to the Biblical story of Israelites marching around the city of Jericho seven times before conquering it via divine intervention.

One of the demonstrators who showed up expressed frustrations that figures who promoted the gathering, including state Sen. Wendy Rogers (R), didn’t join. “Shame on them,” Andrea Alexander told the Republic. Beyond their absence, the event became further mired in chaos. Photos and footage from the scene show certain members of the crowd heckling each other, and Alexander also said she encountered someone sharing conspiracy theories about 9/11. There was also a guy walking around in camo with a megaphone, for some reason. Another guy in a mask largely covering his face was wearing a patch that said “Right Wing Death Squad.”

Maricopa County is the largest county in Arizona by population. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden was victorious there amid flipping the state as a whole, which a Democratic pick for president hadn’t won in the general election since the 1990s. Since 2020, Democrats have scored additional electoral success in the state. Media outlets have already called the state’s race for Senate for incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly, who will now be serving for a full term of six years, and Democrats also prevailed in the Arizona race for Secretary of State. Election-denying state legislator Mark Finchem, who was on the ground in D.C. around the time of the Capitol riot, was defeated by Democrat Adrian Fontes.

Barricades went up outside of this Maricopa County elections headquarters before Election Day even concluded. After the 2020 elections, the threat of political violence wasn’t confined to D.C. For instance, supporters of the then-outgoing president assembled at a vote-counting center in Detroit, with some banging on the windows amid flimsy claims of a lack of appropriate access for observers. Those in charge eventually put cardboard in the windows, protecting voters’ personal information that workers were handling inside. In Georgia, election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss also faced serious threats to their safety. An angry group showed up at a family home in hopes of making a so-called citizen’s arrest over false claims of involvement by the two women in non-existent election fraud.