Is Kari Lake’s star diminishing within the Arizona GOP?

Last week, Kari Lake forced the ouster of GOP Party Chair Jeff DeWitt after releasing a ten-month-old recording of DeWit offering her lucrative financial benefits from powerbrokers back East should she drop out of the Senate race. People were simultaneously shocked because corruption should always shock us and unsurprised because they’ve long suspected that this is the type of corruption that so often drives American politics. However, the response to Lake’s action wasn’t uniformly supportive, as demonstrated at the weekend’s Arizona GOP gathering.

On Saturday, the Arizona Precinct Committeemen met to elect a new GOP Party Chair. Gina Swoboda won by a huge majority after receiving an endorsement from President Trump. The problem for Lake is that she didn’t initially support Swoboda, following along only after Trump did so. Thus, the Arizona Daily Independent reported:

In what some Republicans believed was a swipe at Lake’s preferred candidate Jim O’Connor, President Trump swiftly endorsed Swoboda along with most of the party’s elected officials. Shortly after, Lake endorsed her as well.

Swoboda easily defeated Arizona Corporation Commissioner Jim O’Connor, who reportedly had advance knowledge of Lake’s impending coup of AZGOP Chairman Jeff DeWit and was the choice of Lake’s team to take over the party. The Trump endorsement of Swoboda, who is seen as a close associate of DeWit and other party officials, was likely the knockout blow to O’Connor’s effort.

However, there was something else that happened on Saturday that probably came as a surprise to Lake. According to the same report:

In a telling sign of how many at the meeting disapproved of Lake secretly recording DeWit and waiting ten months to release the video, Lake herself was soundly booed by the raucous crowd while she was introducing Swoboda during the nomination process.

Wow. Kari Lake is getting booed.

— Johnny V. Melton (@RinoLivesMatter) January 27, 2024

Kari Lake getting booed and heckled this weekend by Republicans at the AZ State convention. pic.twitter.com/fHFyK9hlba

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 29, 2024

(Note, however, that it’s impossible to tell from the video whether the boos came from a small quadrant in the audience, the one being filmed, or whether it was a general reaction in the room.)

As a long-time observer of Arizona politics, my take is that Kari Lake has lost the momentum for the Republican nomination for the Senate. If I had to predict what’s going to happen, I would say that Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb will soon be the new favorite. He’s a good man with border experience. This matters because the border is arguably the biggest issue in the 2024 elections, whether in Arizona or America as a whole.

UPDATE: Here’s more insight from a seasoned Arizona political observer.

Image: Kari Lake. YouTube screen grab.