Kari Lake

Kari Lake Halperin (born August 23, 1969) is an American former television news anchor.

A member of the Republican Party, she is a candidate in the 2024 United States Senate election in Arizona.

She was also the Republican nominee in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election.

Lake was born in 1969, in Rock Island, Illinois, to Larry A. Lake, a teacher and coach of football and basketball, from Richland Center, Wisconsin, and Sheila A. Lake (née McGuire), a nurse from Appleton, Wisconsin.

She is the youngest of nine children.

Lake grew up in Iowa.

She graduated from North Scott Senior High School in Eldridge, Iowa, and then received a Bachelor of Arts in communications and journalism from the University of Iowa.

Beginning her media career in the early 1990s, Lake was the anchor for the Phoenix television station KSAZ-TV from 1999 to 2021.

She stepped down from her anchor role shortly before announcing her gubernatorial candidacy and won the Republican nomination with the endorsement of former president Donald Trump.

In May 1991, Lake began working as an intern at KWQC-TV in Davenport, Iowa while attending the University of Iowa.

She later became production assistant before joining WHBF-TV in Rock Island to be a daily reporter and weekend weathercaster in 1992.

In August 1994, Lake was hired by KPNX in Phoenix, Arizona, to be the weekend weather anchor.

She later became evening anchor at KPNX before relocating to work for WNYT in Albany, New York in the summer of 1998 when she replaced Chris Kapostasy.

Lake returned to Arizona in 1999 and became an evening anchor for KSAZ-TV (Fox 10 Phoenix).

She had supported John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008.

She also made several donations to Democratic presidential candidates.

After launching her campaign for governor in 2021, Lake cited Trump, Ronald Reagan, and Arizona Republican Party chair Kelli Ward, all former Democrats, as precedent for her party-switching.

Lake filed paperwork in June 2021 to seek the Republican nomination for governor of Arizona in the 2022 election to succeed incumbent governor Doug Ducey, who was term-limited.

Four candidates sought the Republican nomination: Lake; former real estate developer and Arizona Board of Regents member Karrin Taylor Robson; Paola Tulliani Zen, and Scott Neely.

Lake and Robson were the front-runners, leading in polling and fundraising.

A fifth Republican candidate, ex-congressman Matt Salmon, dropped out of the race after trailing in polls and endorsed Robson.

Throughout her campaign, Lake was described as "a champion of the far-right" movement in the United States.

Lake received Donald Trump's endorsement in September 2021.

The primary was seen as a "battle" between Republicans aligned with Trump and establishment Republicans.

Robson was supported by figures such as former Vice President Mike Pence, governor Ducey, and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.

By the end of 2021, Lake had raised $1.4 million from 12,000 sources.

Lake was a member of the Republican Party until November 3, 2006, when she changed her registration to become an independent.

She explained leaving the Republican Party in 2006 as a reaction to the then-ongoing Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

She registered as a Democrat on January 4, 2008, the day after the Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses were won by Obama.

Lake returned to being a Republican on January 31, 2012.

While at KSAZ, Lake interviewed President Barack Obama in 2016 and President Donald Trump in 2020.

In her last years working in the media, Lake shared false and unverified information on social media, prompting criticism and acquiring a reputation as a provocateur.

In 2018, she opposed the Red for Ed movement, which sought more funding for education through strikes and protests, claiming that movement was a "big push to legalize pot"; she later apologized for the statement (saying that she "made an incorrect conclusion") and, according to the station's regional human resources director, subsequently took an unexpected month-long leave from her position at the station.

In July 2019, Lake was caught on "hot mic" footage promoting her account on the web platform Parler.

Her campaign was marked by various controversies, including promoting false claims of Trump winning the 2020 presidential election and calling for the imprisonment of those who accepted Trump's defeat, including her Democratic opponent, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.

Lake lost the election to Hobbs, but refused to concede and filed several unsuccessful lawsuits to have the results overturned and be declared the winner.

She shared COVID-19 misinformation on Twitter and Facebook in April 2020.

Lake's statements and actions made her a divisive figure among colleagues in her last years at the station.

In March 2021, she announced her departure from KSAZ, one day after FTVLive, a television news industry site, published a video clip of Lake at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida; the website questioned whether Lake was there as a journalist or as a member of a movement.

In June 2021, she announced her campaign for governor.