Who is Kari Lake? What you need to know about Arizona's Republican front-runner for Senate

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Kari Lake, the former Fox 10 news anchor turned anti-media firebrand, is the 2024 Republican front-runner for Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat.

Lake’s political career began when she unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2022. Then a political newcomer, she beat a pack of other GOP candidates by promising to reform election systems in Arizona and to secure the southern border. She went on to lose to Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, by about 17,000 votes.

Since then, Lake has continued to challenge the results of the gubernatorial race in court, unsuccessfully asking judges to declare her the governor. She has not conceded her loss and instead has cultivated a national image as one of the top defenders of former President Donald Trump.

Who is Kari Lake?

Lake, 54, worked at Phoenix's Fox 10 news for 22 years before ending her career in early 2021, with most of that time anchoring the nightly news alongside fellow anchor John Hook.

A native of Iowa, she is the youngest of nine children and daughter of a public school teacher. She studied journalism at the University of Iowa before moving to Arizona and starting at 12 News as a weekend anchor in her late 20s.

That's where she met her husband, to whom she has been married 25 years. They have two children.

Lake worked briefly in Albany, New York, before joining Fox 10's news team, where she built her career and became of familiar face to Arizonans. While there, she interviewed then-Presidents Barack Obama and Trump, pinnacle interviews for any journalist.

Who are Kari Lake's family?

Lake is the daughter of Sheila and Larry Lake and is the youngest of nine children. Of her siblings, she is one of seven girls and one boy. She has also been married to her husband Jeff Halperin for more than 25 years, and the couple have two children together, Ruby and Leo.

Previously, Lake was married to Tracy Finnegan, an electrical engineer, in Davenport, Illinois. The two have since divorced.

Halperin previously worked as a videographer for 12 News. Lake also worked for the Phoenix station as a weather anchor in 1994 before she went to spend the majority of her career as a journalist at Fox 10.

Halperin now works as an independent photographer and has helped out in Lake's campaigns.

How did Kari Lake get into politics?

When she ran for governor in 2022, the former television anchor had never run for office before. In a video announcing her departure from Fox 10, she said she was no longer proud to be a journalist and felt like the media was driving "fear and division" in the country.

Three months later, she announced she was running for governor, pledging to put "Arizona first."

Lake portrayed herself as a change agent who would tackle the state's toughest issues. "The status quo isn’t working," she told The Arizona Republic. "I’m focused on delivering the transformative leadership we need to tackle those challenges head on."

After Lake lost to Hobbs, Lake refused to concede, and has sued multiple times without success in an attempt to have the results overturned.

Lake has since built a national profile as one of Trump’s top defenders and a GOP campaigner across the country. In August, she visited Ohio to campaign for a high-profile ballot initiative that would have restricted abortion there, and she has boosted Trump in his ongoing campaign for president, appearing at events in Iowa, Wisconsin, and more.

Who are Kari Lake's opponents for the Republican nomination?

Lake’s leading challenger for the nomination is Mark Lamb, who has served as Pinal County sheriff since 2017.

Lamb, the self-dubbed “America’s Sheriff,” made headlines during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he refused to enforce a stay-at-home order on the grounds that he believed it was unconstitutional. Lamb also oversaw a plan to deputize police work to a “posse” of armed citizens in response to the protests following the murder of George Floyd.

George Nicholson, a business consultant, and Brian Wright, a mechanical engineer and professional speaker, have also announced their candidacies for the GOP nomination.

If Lake wins the Republican primary, she likely would go on to face Rep. Ruben Gallego, the leading candidate and presumptive nominee for the Democratic nomination. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema – who switched her party affiliation from Democrat to independent – is also expected to run for the seat. Between Arizona’s purple-ish complexion, and the potential for a three-way race, the Senate race is set to be one of the least predictable and highly watched Senate races in the country.

Where does Kari Lake stand on immigration and other top issues?

Lake continues to claim without evidence that Trump won the 2020 election in Arizona, and she has said she would not have certified Biden's election if she were governor at the time.

While running for governor in 2022, she pledged to clean voter registration rolls, stop ballot harvesting and has gone to court to argue for ending the use of electronic voting machines and limit voting to in-person on Election Day, instead of using mail-in ballots.

She has stated that she wants to flood the southern border with law enforcement to keep an "invasion" of migrants at bay and, when she ran for governor, was the only Republican candidate to pledge to work to combat homelessness, offering a plan that provides more resources but also threatens criminal penalties.

She also campaigned on banning critical race theory, which for some has become an umbrella term for a curriculum that teaches about systemic racism, boosts teacher pay by offering performance bonuses, and implements the Hillsdale 1776 curriculum, which was deemed as conservatives' response to teachings like The 1619 Project, which examined American history through the lens of slavery.

On abortion, Lake has shifted tone several times since she entered politics, although she says her anti-abortion views have not changed.

While running for governor, Lake indicated that she would support an abortion ban as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks into a pregnancy, and enthusiastically praised Arizona's territorial-era, near-total ban on abortion. Closer to the general election, she said that abortion should be "rare and legal," though a spokesperson said afterward she didn't mean to use the latter term.

Now, as she runs for U.S. Senate, Lake says that abortion should be decided at the state level. Asked about the topic in December, she declined to directly take a position on Arizona's territorial-era law she once praised, instead emphasizing that she opposes a federal abortion ban.

What are Kari Lake's controversies?

Lake centered her previous campaign on inflammatory and baseless claims about U.S. elections, both in her own race in 2022 and in Trump’s unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2020.

Despite her claims that misconduct cost her the Governor's Office, a Republic analysis showed it was her campaign style that turned off enough Republicans to give Hobbs the narrow victory.

Before running for governor, Lake's departure from Fox 10 followed several controversies, including once when she used an expletive on camera and another in which she alleged the "Red for Ed" push for more education funding was a secret effort to legalize marijuana. It wasn't.

Her past received wide scrutiny when she entered the race for governor, and her opponents and the news media drew contrasts between Lake the journalist and Lake the candidate.

Lake voted as a Democrat between 2008 and 2012, supporting Obama's first term. Lake has attacked Sen. John McCain's legacy, calling the state’s longtime Republican senator a "loser." One of McCain's sons, Jimmy McCain, who considered Lake a friend, said he and family members felt betrayed by Lake's flip.

She also claimed she was a life member of the National Rifle Association, though she refused to provide proof of her membership before 2021.

Why was Kari Lake sued for defamation?

In June, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer sued Lake for defamation over false allegations that he was involved in election-related misconduct. Lake requested a default judgment, which allows a jury to determine damages. She maintains there are no damages from her statements.

"The political elite will do anything to hold onto power,” Lake wrote in a social media post. “They’ve resorted to filing a ludicrous defamation lawsuit to try to stop me and bleed me dry. Taking part in this lawfare just legitimizes it."

Richer's lawsuit alleged that Lake's baseless comments made him and his family "the target of threats of violence, and even death, and have had their lives turned upside down."

Richer, a Republican, said on social media that Lake's request for a default judgment in the case amounted to “complete and total surrender."

“Kari: You lied… It was all B.S," he wrote.

Republic reporter Morgan Fischer contributed to this story.

Reach reporter Stacey Barchenger at stacey.barchenger@arizonarepublic.com or 480-416-5669. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @sbarchenger.

Reach reporter Laura Gersony at laura.gersony@arizonarepublic.com or 480-372-0389. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @lauragersony.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Who is Kari Lake? 5 things to know as she announces Senate bid