Sen. Lindsey Graham backs Kari Lake for the Senate, saying she will halt Democrats' agenda
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham formally endorsed Kari Lake’s Senate run on Thursday, calling her a “reliable, conservative vote” on issues like border security and support for Israel.
The backing from Graham, R-S.C., comes days after a son of Graham’s longtime friend, the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., endorsed Kamala Harris in the presidential race and has been critical of Lake in the past.
“Kari Lake will be a reliable, conservative vote to secure our border, support law and order, bring down inflation and give the American people breathing room to regain control of their lives,” Graham said in a written statement. “Kari will be one of the strongest supporters for the state of Israel in the Senate, unlike her opponent.”
While Graham only now formally endorsed Lake in her race against U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., 10 months ago, he reportedly urged Republicans behind closed doors to back her candidacy, which he viewed as inevitable.
He did so as the National Republican Senatorial Committee presented senators with a poll it conducted that showed Lake losing to Gallego by 4 percentage points in a three-way race involving U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., who later dropped out of the race.
“Graham stood up during the meeting and said Lake is going to be the GOP nominee in Arizona, so Republicans need to help her campaign,” Punchbowl News reported at the time.
Gallego’s campaign did not immediately provide a comment. Gallego has supported Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza and said he would vote for a border security bill earlier this year that included additional aid to Israel that Lake opposed.
“No money for a border wall to stop people from coming across; $90 billion to kill people overseas,” she said in reference to provisions that would have sent aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.
Gallego voted for a separate measure that passed in April that provided $26 billion in aid to Israel and humanitarian aid to those in Gaza.
Graham has occupied one of the more improbable spots in GOP politics in the Trump era.
For years, he seemed inseparable from McCain, who stood as a foil for President Donald Trump’s many breaks from American political convention. In 2014, McCain told The Arizona Republic that he and Graham were "the closest of friends."
After McCain’s 2018 death, Graham became a close ally of Trump.
Jim McCain, one of John McCain’s sons, endorsed Harris on Tuesday and expressed his dismay with Lake during her 2022 gubernatorial run for her personal attacks on his father that echoed Trump’s.
Gallego has received the endorsement of two former state directors for John McCain, Paul Hickman and Bettina Nava.
Graham didn’t invoke his longtime friend while making the case for Lake as the alternative to Gallego.
Instead, he called Gallego “one of the most radical members of the Democratic Party who will double down on Kamala Harris’s failed agenda.”
Graham said, “It is absolutely necessary to change course in this country” and linked President Joe Biden, Harris, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to an “agenda of broken borders, a weak economy, high inflation, and pathetic foreign policy.”
Lake, in a statement, said she was “honored” to have Graham’s backing.
“The first step in saving America is electing Republicans up and down the ballot and the first step in doing that is uniting the GOP,” she said.
Lake has generally trailed Gallego in public polling in the race since Sinema quit the contest in March. Some polls had recently shown Gallego with double-digit leads over Lake, though a string of the latest polls tracked by FiveThirtyEight shows him ahead by mid-single digits.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Sen. Lindsey Graham endorses Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake
