Former Republican candidate for Arizona governor Kari Lake has exhausted all of her viable options to overturn the results of the election, drawing an end to the battle over election fraud in the state.
On Monday, Lake's opponent, Governor Katie Hobbs, was sworn in as the state's fifth female governor, and the first Democrat elected in more than 15 years, effectively ending Lake's efforts to become the next governor of Arizona.
Despite losing by more than 17,000 votes, Lake refused to concede the election and launched a legal fight to contest the results. Even after a Maricopa County judge ruled against her lawsuit, Lake filed to appeal in hopes of still being declared the winner of the election.
But time has run out for the Republican. "Effectively it is over," David Schultz, an election law expert and politics professor at Hamline University, told Newsweek.
Last month, Lake's attorneys tried to prove that election officials intentionally caused ballot printer malfunctions and purposefully broke ballot chain of custody to sway the results against her. But her team was unable to convince a lower court judge, who ruled that Lake failed to prove her claims.
Yet Lake remained unwavering in her belief that she was the winner of Arizona's governor race and filed an appeal that contained its own challenges for Lake and her team of lawyers.
"Even if she wins her appeal because the trial judge applied the wrong legal standard by requiring proof of intentional misconduct or clear and convincing evidence, at best Lake gets a new trial," former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Newsweek.
Seeing that Lake was unable to present sufficient evidence proving her election fraud claims, Rahmani said it's unlikely she'd find the necessary evidence in a second trial.
Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Rachel Fiset told Newsweek that "a route forward for Lake [is] virtually impossible."
"With the swearing in of Katie Hobbs, Kari Lake's baseless effort to overturn the will of the voters is dead," attorney and former U.S. Ambassador Norm Eisen told Newsweek. "She may appeal, but she will lose."
With a new governor already sworn in, Schultz said it's unlikely a higher court would remove the new governor from office.
"Hobbs has already been sworn in as governor, and Lake's appeal will take weeks to resolve, if not months," Rahmani added. "It's over for Lake."
Eisen said the goal of Lake's legal efforts was aimed at creating a narrative and rhetoric that she and other election deniers "can use to continue to fan the flames of resentment by their followers."
Schultz added Lake may already be aware that she's run out of legal options, and could rather be using the continued lawsuit to raise money for legal expenses or to tee up her next career move.
He predicted that Lake isn't backing down from her claims to help mount a Senate bid or make a case she should be former President Donald Trump's running mate for 2024, if he gets the GOP nomination.
Update 01/03/23, 1:00 p.m. ET: This story was updated with comments from Norm Eisen.
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Katherine Fung is a Newsweek reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and world politics. ... Read more
