In politics, there are no second acts. Enter Kari Lake.

Among Arizona Republicans, Kari Lake needs little introduction. So, at a recent state party meeting, the outgoing chairwoman, Kelli Ward, keeps it simple. 

“Our real governor!” she declares. 

Ms. Lake, wearing a red frilled blouse, lavender-gray pants, and black stilettos, takes the stage at a Phoenix megachurch to thunderous applause and cheers. She briefly basks in the acclaim before launching into a quick-fire speech about election fraud, former President Donald Trump – she just got off the phone with him, and he “loves Arizona” – and the rally she’s holding the next day where she will talk about, once again, election fraud. 

“People are watching what’s happening in Arizona,” she says. “They saw it in broad daylight as our elections were stolen right in front of our eyes.” 

Ms. Lake, who lost the governorship by a whisker to Democrat Katie Hobbs in November, says she’s fighting in court to reverse the results and get to work fixing “our corrupt elections.” 

That court case – which she already lost and is pursuing on appeal – is “going really, really well,” she tells the 1,000-plus crowd. On Feb. 16, the Arizona Court of Appeals also ruled against Ms. Lake, declining to force out Governor Hobbs and declare a new election. Ms. Lake immediately vowed to take her case to Arizona’s Supreme Court.

Nearly three months after her defeat, Ms. Lake is still at the first stage of grief: denial. There’s also anger, the second stage, which she will uncork at the rally, but today it’s all denial. Denial of Arizona’s election procedures, vote tallies, and official audits. Denial that the Trump-endorsed slate of candidates she led in November lost. Denial of the legitimacy of Ms. Hobbs and other elected Democrats, whom she calls “frauds who took over our state government.”

Less explicitly stated, but just as clear, is her denial of the fact that many leaders in her own party are eager to turn the page on candidates like her. One of the clearest messages to emerge from the 2022 elections was voters’ rejection of politicians who echoed former President Donald Trump’s false claims of electoral fraud. Many moderate and independent voters saw the GOP as “sort of nasty and tended towards chaos,” Sen. Mitch McConnell said afterward. The solution, the Republican Senate leader added pointedly, will be to run “quality candidates” next time.  

But Ms. Lake, a TV anchor-turned-MAGA warrior who had been widely heralded as one of 2022’s rising political stars, refuses to see the writing on the wall. She wants to bulldoze that wall. And so, some 100 days after the election, she’s still out there campaigning. Meeting with Republican senators in Washington. Blitzing right-wing media. Even making an eyebrow-raising trip to Iowa, an early presidential voting state.

That chutzpah, once seen as a measure of strength, now has a certain pathos to it. But Ms. Lake’s sheer refusal to accept defeat could impact more than her own political trajectory. In this pivotal period of transition for the Republican Party – with Mr. Trump seemingly diminished but trying to reassert his hold – Ms. Lake’s charismatic brand of election denialism could shape not only the future of the MAGA movement but also the 2024 Senate map and even the presidential race. 

“Kari has never quit campaign mode,” says Tyler Montague, a GOP consultant who opposed her candidacy. “She’s the most popular figure among the far right in Arizona now. So what she does next matters.”

Since November, Ms. Lake’s nonstop attacks on GOP election supervisors she calls “Judas Republicans” have netted her millions of dollars from donors across the country and fed a fantasy among her base that, any day now, she will turf out Arizona’s actual governor. Because what possible explanation, besides cheating, could explain what happened after Ms. Lake had been leading in all the polls?

“I was knocking on doors. I know what I saw. It’s inexplicable,” says Patty Porter, a GOP state committee member, who believes the vote was rigged.

In many ways, it’s a replay of the aftermath of the Trump 2020 campaign. For candidates challenging elections, there’s now a familiar script: Relentlessly highlight certain data points, warn that democracy is under attack, and accuse the media of complicitly turning a blind eye. Ms. Lake’s still-active war room sends out regular tweets wondering, for example, how Democrats could have won four statewide offices in Arizona while voters also elected Republican congressional candidates by double digits overall (answer: because some of those GOP candidates were running unopposed). Through a spokesperson, Ms. Lake turned down requests for an interview with the Monitor. 

Some who worked to elect Ms. Lake wonder if she truly believes everything she says. Yet others insist this is the true Kari Lake – a MAGA devotee whose own foray into politics was spurred by her genuine conviction that the 2020 election had been stolen from Mr. Trump. “From the first time I met her [her belief in election fraud] was very clear to me,” says a former campaign staffer. “I knew if she lost this is what was going to happen.”

Trumpism’s “leading lady”

At the back of a brightly lit event space outside Des Moines, Myrna Garcia eyes a crowd of people pressing toward a stage flanked by U.S. and Iowa flags, with Kari Lake’s name emblazoned in the center. Music echoes off brick walls as volunteers greet guests and hand out flyers.

Like nearly everyone in the room, Ms. Garcia is full of enthusiasm about Ms. Lake and her political future. “She’s got a riveting personality,” says the home caregiver. “She’s young. She’s vibrant. She’s aggressive.” 

“She’s the most outstanding American citizen I know,” agrees Steve Allison, an engineer. “I could see her going all the way to the White House.”

That a failed gubernatorial candidate from a state some 1,300 miles away is packing a hall full of Iowans in a non-election year is testament to Ms. Lake’s appeal. Among a certain segment of the GOP base, who have watched her do hit after hit on conservative media, she’s second only to Donald Trump. Many here muse about the possibility of a Trump-Lake ticket.

In the mainstream press, no Republican in the 2022 cycle was treated to as much hype as Ms. Lake. She was profiled, endlessly, as the “new face of the MAGA right,” and Trumpism’s “leading lady.”

As a candidate, she could make an instant connection with people, says a former campaign staffer. “People just thrived off of it. She had the ability to make you feel like she was talking to every person in the room.” Even associates who believe her tactical missteps – feuding with fellow Republicans, alienating traditional donors, muddling her policy agenda – handed a winnable election to a Democrat remain in thrall to her political skills and stage presence. 

“She was the most talented candidate I’ve ever seen. It’s not even close,” says another former staffer.

When Ms. Hobbs, Arizona’s soft-spoken then-secretary of state, refused to debate her – saying Ms. Lake would turn the forum into a “circus” – even some Democrats began criticizing their own candidate as weak.

All of which made the fall, when it came, that much more jarring.

Ms. Lake’s narrow loss – by 17,000 votes out of 2.5 million cast – was to many a surprise. But the overall voting patterns were not, says Benny White, a Republican data analyst. In Maricopa County, where 6 in 10 Arizona voters live, enough Republicans and independents rejected Ms. Lake and other far-right candidates who denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election to tip close races to Democrats. “They were predictably unelectable,” he says. 

To wit: 33,794 voters in Maricopa who chose GOP candidates down ballot also picked Ms. Hobbs as governor. On the flip side, 8,541 Democrats chose Ms. Lake, according to Mr. White’s analysis of voting records. That deficit – nearly 25,000 crossover votes, mostly in affluent suburbs – was enough to sink her chances in the county that typically decides elections in Arizona. 

Maricopa had had ballot printing problems on Election Day that disrupted the process and caused longer wait times. A report later issued by the county concluded that fewer than 1% of ballots were affected, and “no voter was disenfranchised” by the problem. But many of Ms. Lake’s supporters immediately cried foul.

After Ms. Hobbs was projected the winner, Ms. Lake went briefly and uncharacteristically silent, simply tweeting: “Americans know BS when they see it.” Shortly thereafter, she announced she was assembling a legal team to challenge the results.

Her own campaign counsel did not join the lawsuit. Instead, Ms. Lake has been represented by a divorce lawyer who had represented the now defunct Cyber Ninjas firm in their widely discredited “audit” of Arizona’s 2020 election.

On Dec. 24, an Arizona court dismissed Ms. Lake’s lawsuit to overturn the election after holding two days of hearings, during which none of her witnesses could testify to any acts of intentional misconduct by election officials in Maricopa County.

“The Court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and convincing evidence,” wrote Judge Peter Thompson. 

The court had agreed to the hearings after dismissing eight related claims as meritless. Ms. Lake is appealing both the verdict and the dismissal of her other claims. 

A sharp right turn

If election fraud and a corrupt media are the main animating passions of Kari Lake the candidate, to some former friends and colleagues, it’s a baffling departure from the woman and journalist they once knew.

Ms. Lake, who grew up in Iowa as the youngest of nine children, moved to Phoenix in 1994 to work as a TV weather reporter. Five years later, she landed a job as an evening news anchor on Channel 10, a Fox affiliate.

Married with two children, Ms. Lake could be demanding but also warm and supportive, former colleagues have said. (Most current employees are legally barred from talking about her.) Few saw a political edge to her.

“She was a super normal person,” says Marlene Galan-Woods, a former news anchor in Phoenix whose late husband, former Republican Attorney General Grant Woods, negotiated Ms. Lake’s contracts. 

Ms. Lake has said she voted for Barack Obama in 2008. In 2016, though, she began to post pro-Trump messages on social media and became more outspoken in support of conservative causes, which irked station managers who insisted on neutrality from anchors. Then, in 2019, Ms. Lake was caught on a hot mic using profanity to put down a Phoenix alternative weekly newspaper.  

She left that day, hired an attorney to handle the fallout, and didn’t come back for a month, says Diana Pike, Channel 10’s human resources director. Staff had to cancel vacations to cover for her. She never apologized for what happened after her return, says Ms. Pike, who has since retired. 

“People were so mad at her. She came back in the newsroom like a conquering hero, and they just ignored her. That’s how she treated people,” she says. 

The tensions grew after the 2020 election, when Arizona was convulsed by Trump protesters blaming fraud for his loss, allegations amplified online by Ms. Lake. She left the station in March 2021. Ms. Lake claims she quit in disgust with the news media. Ms. Pike calls it a mutual separation. 

Three months later, Ms. Lake announced her run for governor.

She faced well-funded opponents in the Republican primary. By then, she had built a national profile as a 2020 election denier and a crowd-drawing celebrity, which earned her Mr. Trump’s endorsement. She held fundraisers at Mar-a-Lago and spoke regularly to the former president, fueling talk of Ms. Lake as a potential vice presidential pick. 

After she won the primary, Republican strategists saw a clear path to consolidate the vote and shut out Ms. Hobbs, the Democratic nominee. Everything seemed to be going Ms. Lake’s way.

“Money wasn’t the issue that it was in the primary. Money was rolling in from across the country,” says Thomas Van Flein, the chief of staff to GOP Rep. Paul Gosar, who took a leave to advise the campaign. 

But Ms. Lake didn’t tack to the center, or even the center-right. Instead, she stuck to right-wing cultural grievances and “election integrity,” and largely ignored critical local issues like water and education. She put Caroline Wren, a former Trump fundraiser who was a “VIP Advisor” to the Jan. 6, 2021, rally that preceded the Capitol riot, in charge of her campaign. She appeared alongside former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and other MAGA firebrands, mocking “McCain Republicans” in Arizona as insufficiently conservative. She even vacuumed a red carpet for Mr. Trump to stand on when he visited.

It was all “Trump, Trump, Trump,” recalls a former campaign consultant. Ms. Lake and her inner circle, according to this strategist, had begun to treat Arizona as the launchpad to a presidential ticket, even as the governor’s race tightened. “She didn’t want to be governor. She wanted to be Trump’s running mate,” says the consultant. 

These distractions, along with Ms. Lake’s unapologetically aggressive style, helped turn a winnable race into a toss-up, says this consultant. “It was ours to lose. We did it. Well, she [Ms. Lake] did it.” 

Attacks on election officials

Inside a suburban golf club, Kari Lake stares out into a sea of faces. More than a hundred boisterous supporters are crammed into a windowless room, with many more waiting outside. Some hold printed signs that read “Save Arizona” and “Karizona.” It’s 95 degrees Fahrenheit inside the room. 

“I didn’t realize everybody would show up tonight,” she says brightly. “This is great. We have the people with us. But they have the corrupt election officials with them. That’s how they win.” 

Today, Ms. Lake goes one better with her Trump connection. “We have the president on the phone,” she crows, holding up an iPhone. “President Trump, you’re not going to believe this crowd. Everyone in Arizona cares about election integrity.” 

As the crowd cheers, Mr. Trump’s voice can be heard through the phone, repeating Ms. Lake’s allegations that “the machines” broke on Election Day in “Republican areas.” She alleges this was a deliberate ploy to depress her vote. The court found, however, that the malfunctions didn’t stop anyone from voting, nor did the errors disproportionately affect GOP-leaning areas, though Republicans were more likely to have been affected overall because they were less likely to vote by mail. 

Ms. Lake says the only remedy is a new election, calling Ms. Hobbs a “squatter” in the governor’s office. “Don’t get too comfortable, sweetie,” she says, with a steely grin. 

Her biggest targets, however, are the GOP officials in Maricopa County who oversaw the election.

She displays a photo of Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County recorder, and Bill Gates, a county supervisor. “These clowns trampled on the sacred right to vote,” she thunders as the crowd chants, “Lock them up!”

Both men have received multiple death threats, and Mr. Gates and his family had to move out of their home during the election. A man in Missouri was charged in federal court last August after making death threats to Mr. Richer. In July, the FBI arrested a Massachusetts man who made bomb threats against Ms. Hobbs, who as secretary of state certified Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona in 2020. 

During her campaign, Ms. Lake also made Arizona’s media a regular foil. She called out reporters by name, criticizing their coverage, and told a news conference in November that if elected she would be the media’s “worst freaking nightmare.”

Tonight, she accuses reporters in the room of ignoring her evidence of fraud and urges them to tell the truth. “Tell the truth! Tell the truth!” her supporters chant. 

“I’m tempted to take it and slap them in the face with it,” she says. “There’s a reason that we rope the media off, and it’s not for my protection.” The crowd erupts again. 

Last October, 60 former media professionals in Arizona signed a joint statement urging political candidates – none by name – to stop threatening the media, writing “bullying reporters for political gain is unacceptable and unpatriotic.”

Ms. Galan-Woods, the former news anchor, was one of them. She believes Ms. Lake’s rhetoric could incite violence. “It’s reprehensible,” says Ms. Galan-Woods, a Democrat who is considering a run for Congress. “I think she knows better.” 

What comes next

Few politicians in U.S. history have suffered a more excruciating loss than Al Gore in 2000. Denied a full recount by the Supreme Court, he lost Florida – and with it, the election – to George W. Bush by a margin of 537 votes, amid a spectacle of “hanging chads” and a confusing “butterfly” ballot that caused some 2,000 Democratic retirees to accidentally vote for conservative Pat Buchanan. 

The crisis ended when Mr. Gore gave a gracious and widely praised speech in which he urged the country to come together. After that, he followed the generally approved next steps for a losing candidate. He grew a beard and took a six-week trip to Europe. He avoided directly criticizing his opponent, then in the White House. In time, he turned his painful defeat into a laugh line. “I am Al Gore, and I used to be the next president of the United States of America,” he would say.   

The final stage of grief – after denial, anger, bargaining, and depression – is acceptance. For losing candidates like Ms. Lake, say many strategists, accepting defeat is necessary in order to properly assess what went wrong and mount a better campaign next time. 

Yet near-miss candidates often discover that lightning rarely strikes twice. Onetime Democratic superstar Stacy Abrams, who herself cried foul after narrowly losing the race for Georgia governor in 2018, took a second crack at it last year but never caught fire. In Texas, Beto O’Rourke was never able to recapture the momentum from his narrow loss to Sen. Ted Cruz, mounting failed presidential and gubernatorial campaigns.

In that sense, there may be a certain logic to Ms. Lake’s steadfast refusal to concede. Her ongoing crusade has also become a money-generator, just as Mr. Trump turned defeat into gold after 2020. Ms. Lake has raised $2.5 million since the election, of which less than 10% has been spent directly on her litigation efforts. Most donations have come from out of state. 

This money machine creates more incentives for Ms. Lake to keep making her case, says Kathy Petsas, a GOP activist who calls herself a McCain Republican. “She has celebrity derangement syndrome. There’s a constant need for attention,” she says. 

Some associates say Ms. Lake could still pivot and move on: Concede the election and focus on a conservative policy agenda, while continuing to call for greater accountability in election administration. There is plenty of work to do. Maricopa officials have yet to get to the bottom of their equipment failures and have appointed a former state supreme court judge to investigate. 

Others see little chance of that happening. Some even express unease at the idea of Ms. Lake potentially holding public office in the future. “I’m glad she lost,” says a former staffer. If she winds up running again, “I’d work for free against her, that’s how I feel about her being in leadership.”

That opportunity may come as soon as next year. Ms. Lake appears to be eyeing a run for Arizona’s Senate seat currently held by Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat-turned-independent. Ms. Lake’s been courting national Republicans and has kept on much of her campaign team under Ms. Wren. 

Rep. Ruben Gallego has already announced he’ll seek the Democratic nomination, setting up a potential three-way race. Should that happen, a split Democratic vote could pave the way for a Republican win. But Senator Sinema may also conclude by next year that she has no path to victory as an independent. 

Under that scenario, Arizona Republicans will need a candidate who can appeal beyond the base. That didn’t happen in 2022, says Karrin Taylor Robson, a businesswoman who lost to Ms. Lake in the gubernatorial primary and is already being mentioned as a possible Senate candidate in 2024. 

Politics is all about addition, not subtraction, and that means not alienating members of your own party, Ms. Taylor Robson writes in an email. “When the party gets tired of losing general elections, it will start to nominate candidates that are able to build winning coalitions.”

Mr. White, the data analyst, has come to the same conclusion: MAGA candidates like Ms. Lake probably can’t win a majority in a state where independents now outnumber Republicans and Democrats. Asked about Ms. Lake’s lawsuits, he says her attorneys could have saved time and money by examining the actual election results before filing “spurious claims” in court. The fact that she failed to net enough Republican voters is what mattered, not who serviced the printers. 

But facts don’t seem to matter anymore, he says. “People cannot accept factual evidence contrary to their beliefs. They have a belief set. They talk to each other and endorse each other’s conspiracies.” 

“I’m not going away”

A prairie wind cuts the winter sun outside the faux-industrial space where some 150 people have shown up to see Ms. Lake outside Des Moines. It’s standing room only below the exposed ducts and metal girders, and the warmup playlist could have been borrowed from a Trump rally: “Tiny Dancer,” “Gloria,” and – perhaps fittingly for a candidate who hasn’t conceded – “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough.”

Ms. Lake bounds onstage in a white blouse and tailored jeans, basking in fulsome applause. “It’s so good to be home,” she says, having grown up in Iowa. 

Her message here seems more tailored to a national audience, layering her Arizona election grievances with issues like border security, fentanyl, and Ukraine aid. She mentions homeless veterans and vocational training. She takes swipes at the media – ”it’s not journalism, it’s propaganda” – and election officials who “rigged” her defeat, but her tone is as much in regret as anger. 

At one point, a supporter yells “Trump VP!” to Ms. Lake’s evident delight. “My team has told me ... they’re going to think you’re running for something,” she says coyly. “And I said that’s crazy.” 

Tonight, however, there’s no big reveal, just a promise of more Kari Lake. “I just want you to know I’m not going away – and I’m going to work to make sure that we have fair elections in all 50 states.” 

After the speech ends, she’ll spend an hour taking selfies with a long line of fans. But before then, Ms. Lake invokes her father. A football coach and teacher, he taught her that “if you’re not in the fight, then you can’t win the fight,” she says. And – she pointedly adds – if you lose fair and square, “you congratulate the winner, and you move on.”

She pauses for a split second. “But I didn’t lose.”

Editor’s note: The spelling of Rep. Ruben Gallego’s name has been corrected, and Kari Lake’s childhood connection to Iowa has been clarified.