CPAC Announces Election Loser Kari Lake as Its Flagship Speaker, For ‘Exposing Widespread Election Fraud’

AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) announced that failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake would be a keynote speaker at their upcoming conference in March, lauding the election denier for “exposing widespread election fraud.”

Lake, a Republican who had the backing of former President Donald Trump, peddled a similar brand of election denialism as her key endorser, ceaselessly (and baselessly) claiming that the ex-president lost his 2020 re-election because of fraud, and then refusing to say she would accept the results of her own election if she lost.

Well, she did lose to Democrat Katie Hobbs, and a post-election analysis of the ballots found that Lake stumbled because Republican-leaning voters in Arizona cast votes for other GOP candidates but refused to support her. Just in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county, about 33,000 voters who supported down-ballot Republicans voted for Hobbs, and another nearly 6,000 voted for a write-in candidate or left the governor’s race blank. Hobbs’ statewide margin of victory was 17,117.

That hasn’t stopped Lake from continuing to beat the the drum with her baseless claims of election fraud. Like some Trump supporters have ludicrously claimed he’s somehow still president, Lake has called herself the “duly-elected governor of Arizona” — even after Hobbs was sworn into office.

She lost the lawsuit she and other Republican organizations and candidates filed on Election Day complaining about printer issues in Maricopa County and attempting to extend voting hours, and followed up by losing the lawsuit she filed after the election challenging the results, with the judge’s opinion stating that she had failed to provide “clear and convincing evidence” that misconduct occurred in the election, that such misconduct was intended to affect the election, and did in fact affect the election, issuing a ruling “confirming the election of Katie Hobbs as Arizona Governor-Elect.”

But in the view of CPAC organizers, Lake is “a rare leader who captured the hearts of conservatives with her honest, bold message including closing the Arizona border and exposing widespread election fraud.”

“Exposing widespread election fraud”? Not according to the Maricopa County Superior Court.

But that was the exact quote from a statement released by CPAC, as reported by CBS News White House reporter Kathryn Watson.

Lake isn’t just speaking at CPAC, she has one of the most prominent spots during the entire three-day confab for conservative activists as the keynote speaker at the Ronald Reagan Dinner, an event that requires purchasing a separate ticket to attend.

Other details about Lake’s CPAC appearance have not yet been released, but the event website has been updated to add her to the list of speakers.