Arizona standoff: Ducey vs. Trump in proxy race for next governor

Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey — whose relationship with Donald Trump ruptured over his refusal to overturn the state’s 2020 election outcome — is now going against the former president’s pick in the race to succeed him as governor.

Ducey announced his support for Karrin Taylor Robson, a member of the Arizona Board of Regents who is running against Kari Lake, a Trump-endorsed former local TV news anchor, in the Aug. 2 primary. It's the latest chapter in an ongoing drama between Trump and Ducey, who was famously videotaped putting Trump to voicemail while signing papers certifying Joe Biden as the winner of Arizona’s presidential vote.

Trump has since turned Ducey into one of his favorite targets, calling him a “RINO” — Republican in Name Only — and “one of the worst Governors in America.” In endorsing Lake last September, Trump said she would “do a far better job than” Ducey. Lake has followed Trump’s lead, attacking the governor for, among other things, his border policies, while relentlessly trumpeting the former president’s ongoing lie that the election was stolen.

Ducey, who is termed out of office, has shrugged off Trump’s attacks, saying last year that he “would hold up my conservative record in Arizona against any other state.” The 58-year-old governor has stood by his decision to certify the election, remarking that he was “loyal to the Constitution and the law.”

In a statement announcing his endorsement, Ducey called Robson “the real deal: pro-Life, pro-gun, and pro-wall — and she’ll stand up to Joe Biden and the radical Left.”

The governor has filmed an advertisement expressing his support for Robson that was released Thursday, and is expected to take additional steps to bolster the candidate in the run-up to the primary, according to a person familiar with his plans.

Lake has run a slashing, pro-Trump campaign, this week releasing a new ad in which she declares that as governor she would “finish President Trump’s wall.” During a televised debate last week, Lake asked her rival candidates whether they agreed with her that the election “corrupt” and “stolen”; her campaign later said it was “sickening” that Robson refused to say so.

Robson, however, has been a major Trump backer, too: Her campaign has noted that she raised more than $1 million for Trump’s campaigns. Her husband, Ed Robson, was also a six-figure donor to Trump.

Ducey also collided with Trump in the Georgia governor’s race when he got behind incumbent Brian Kemp, whom the former president has also relentlessly attacked for refusing to overturn the 2020 election results. Kemp easily won the primary over former Sen. David Perdue, who had Trump’s endorsement.

Ducey was recruited by senior Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to run for Senate this year but decided against it. Trump made clear he would oppose a Ducey Senate bid, saying at one point that “MAGA will never accept RINO Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona running for the U.S. Senate.”