Arizona Republican Kari Lake refuses to say whether she'll accept election results


Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for governor in Arizona, was asked multiple times on Sunday whether she will accept the election results if she loses — and each time, she didn't answer the question.
During an appearance on CNN's State of the Union, host Dana Bash asked Lake, a former news anchor at the Fox station in Phoenix, about accepting the results. After refusing to answer the first two times, Lake responded after the third query, "I'm going to win the election, and I will accept that result."
It's a close race between Lake and the Democratic nominee, current Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. Hobbs was also interviewed for Sunday's State of the Union in a separate segment, and called Lake's refusal to answer Bash's questions "disqualifying."
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Lake has falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election in Arizona was "stolen" from former President Donald Trump, and said she wouldn't have certified President Biden's victory. "This is somebody who will have a level of authority over our state's elections, the ability to sign new legislation into law, the responsibility of certifying future elections," Hobbs said. "And she has not only, as you heard, refused to to say if she will accept the results of this election, but also whether or not she would certify the 2024 presidential election if she's governor."
Hobbs has refused to debate Lake, saying her opponent is "only interested in creating a spectacle." Lake in turn has accused Hobbs of "cowardice."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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