Kari Lake latest: Dismal turnout at Arizona capitol protest as Republican’s supporters decry election loss

An influential conservative donor announced on Tuesday that he was not supporting Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, a stance that shows just how deep the fractures within the GOP may run after last week’s midterms.

“America does better when its leaders are rooted in today and tomorrow, not today and yesterday,” said Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, in a statement to Axios.

“It is time for the Republican Party to turn to a new generation of leaders and I intend to support one of them in the presidential primaries,” he added.

A small but vocal group of Kari Lake’s supporters who refused to accept the outcome of the governor’s race rallied outside the state capitol in Arizona on Tuesday.

Roughly 15 people gathered at the statehouse waving flags emblazoned with pro-Trump messages and “SOS”.

Voters rejected Republicans in critical state-level races running on bogus election narratives and endless grievances.

After beating them, newly elected officials warn that the GOP movement of Trump loyalists and conspiracy theorists isn’t over yet.

Kari Lake has not conceded in the race for Arizona governor, and her campaign has shared videos of people accusing election officials and poll workers of malfeasance.

Her campaign’s “war room” Twitter account has accused her opponent and current secretary of state Katie Hobbs as well as election officials in Maricopa County of running a “third world election” that is “creating a whole generation of new ‘election deniers’.”

Videos shared by the campaign show voters detailing problems with ballot processing machines, which election officials had admitted were an issue as technical difficulties led to delays and frustrations.

There was a solution: Voters could place their ballots in a secure box at each polling location used for that exact issue. “Box 3” boxes have been the subject of conspiracy theories and rampant speculation, suggesting that the ballots were tossed out entirely.

But some of Ms Lake’s chief allies told voters not to trust them, including Kelli Ward, chair of the state GOP:

Under Kelli Ward’s leadership of the Arizona GOP, 2022 midterm elections will be the first in nearly 50 years that Republicans have lost a majority of statewide races.

Karrin Taylor Robson, a former member of the Arizona Board of Regents, called for Ms Ward’s resignation.

“Kelli Ward’s leadership of the Republican Party has been an unmitigated disaster,” she wrote in a damning letter on Tuesday.

“For the good of the party she claims to love, and for the future of the state that we all cherish, Kelli Ward must do the right thing,” she added. “Kelli Ward must resign as the Arizona Republican Party Chairman.”

In a hearing on Wednesday, one week and a day after Election Day, Maricopa County’s Board of Supervisors were hit with a flood of complaints during a public hearing alleging malfeasance in the wake of GOP losses in statewide races.

ABC 15 reporter Nicole Grigg compiled a reel of their complaints:

Far-right activist and former Trump aide Steve Bannon was reportedly “clear-eyed about the unfavorable numbers” before Kari Lake’s election loss.

But he told his War Room listeners this week that Ms Lake’s campaign – backed by Trump allies and far-right activist groups – is working “behind the scenes” to challenge Katie Hobbs’s vistory.

“Don’t think that Kari Lake that is not going to fight this one down to the bitter end,” he said.

He repeatedly suggested that the state decertify the results, echoing his baseless narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump – claims that have been popular fundraising mechanisms to propel ultimately unsuccessful reactionary campaigns over the last two years.

But off the airwaves, Ms Lake’s campaign was being advised to a more measured approach to the outcome and not “storm the castle,” according to The Washington Post.

In a speech to supporters on Tuesday, governor-elect Katie Hobbs said she will move to repeal a more than century-old ban on abortion in the state that was allowed to take effect after the US Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade.

The anti-abortion law was updated in 1901. But Arizona didn’t become a state until 1912. The sweeping abortion prohibition from the state’s territorial history decades earlier has remain on the books, but unenforced, for more than a century, despite the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling found the law and others like it unconstitutional.

Under Kelli Ward’s leadership of the Arizona GOP, 2022 midterm elections will be the first in nearly 50 years that Republicans have lost a majority of statewide races.

Karrin Taylor Robson, a former member of the Arizona Board of Regents, called for Ms Ward’s resignation.“Kelli Ward’s leadership of the Republican Party has been an unmitigated disaster,” she wrote in a damning letter on Tuesday.

“For the good of the party she claims to love, and for the future of the state that we all cherish, Kelli Ward must do the right thing,” she added. “Kelli Ward must resign as the Arizona Republican Party Chairman.”