Kari Lake, a former newscaster turned politician, recognizes trending news stories and offered one with a funny twist this week on a trip to Iowa.
The 2022 Arizona Republican gubernatorial contender, who lost a close and contentious campaign to now-Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, announced her journey to Iowa earlier this week on Twitter – where she is from and, coincidentally, where the nation’s first primaries are held.
Lake gave a speech to the Scott County Republicans in Bettendorf, Iowa, where she credited her heritage with giving her the tenacity to continue battling in court following her election loss, claiming there were enough vote anomalies to give Hobbs a victory.
“We start Iowa nice, right? And then we start moving it up until we get to like the Iowa witch part, and I’m about to go Iowa witch on the media,” she told the audience, according to the Iowa Capital Dispatch.
Lake later turned to Twitter after the event to tell what she called a “hilarious” story.
She took to social media to share.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL“I have to share something hilarious with you guys. I’m in Iowa with hundreds of voters tonight for a rally. There was an open bar that ran out of beer… Except for one brand… @budlight. Go woke, go BROKE. Sad!”
I have to share something hilarious with you guys.
I’m in Iowa with hundreds of voters tonight for a rally. There was an open bar that RAN OUT of beer…
Except for one brand… @budlight
Go woke, go BROKE. Sad!
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) April 6, 2023
Lake was referring to Anheuser Busch’s recent contentious move to link the brand with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, which resulted in a significant boycott of the beverage by conservatives.
AB InBev, a Belgian multinational giant, currently owns the once-American company.
Mulvaney, according to Newsweek, is a transgender social media superstar with over 10 million TikTok followers and 1.7 million Instagram followers. Yet, as radio presenter Erick Erickson pointed out, their fans are unlikely to be among Bud Light’s target demographic.
“Is the Bud Light thing an April Fool’s joke? I mean it is trash beer, but given the constituent demo of Bud Light drinkers, it seems like a terrible marketing thing,” Erickson tweeted.
Is the Bud Light thing an April Fool's joke? I mean it is trash beer, but given the constituent demo of Bud Light drinkers, it seems like a terrible marketing thing.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) April 2, 2023
The Arizona Supreme Court refused to hear aspects of Lake’s appeal in the governor contest from the November midterm elections last month. But, the state’s top court reinstated a lawsuit about the Maricopa County signature verification method that had been dismissed by a trial court.
Lake’s team doubled down at the state Supreme Court in a newly filed briefing on her assertion that 35,563 ballots were unaccounted for and purportedly showed up in Maricopa County’s final total in November’s midterm election.
The court also ordered Lake to respond to Hobbs’ and Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ motions to censure Lake for asserting in her brief “the undisputed fact that 35,563 unaccounted-for ballots were added to the total number of ballots at a third-party processing facility.”
“The record does not reflect that 35,563 unaccounted ballots were added to the total count. The motions for sanctions will be considered in due course.” the justices found.
The motion concerning the purported 35,563 votes is significant since it exceeds Hobbs’ roughly 17,000 vote margin of victory.
The Arizona Supreme Court allowed Lake’s move to renew the lawsuit questioning the Maricopa County signature verification process in late March.
“In an order Wednesday, the state’s highest court said a lower court erroneously dismissed Lake’s claim challenging the application of signature verification procedures on early ballots in Maricopa County. The court sent the claim back to a trial court to consider,” according to the Associated Press.
“In her challenge, the former TV anchor focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of the state’s voters. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling places. Lines backed up in some areas amid the confusion. Lake alleged ballot printer problems were the result of intentional misconduct,” according to the source.
“In mid-February, the Arizona Court of Appeals rejected Lake’s assertions, concluding she presented no evidence that voters whose ballots were unreadable by tabulators at polling places were not able to vote. The appeals court noted that even a witness called to testify on Lake’s behalf confirmed ballots that couldn’t initially be read at polling places may ultimately have been counted. And while a pollster testified that the polling place problems disenfranchised enough voters to change the election’s outcome, the appeals court said his conclusion was baseless,” the AP added.
