Liz Cheney Is Targeting GOP Election Deniers Lake and Finchem in New Arizona Ad

(Bloomberg) -- Republican Representative Liz Cheney’s political action committee is launching a new ad in Arizona targeting GOP nominees Kari Lake for governor and Mark Finchem for secretary of state, saying they will only honor election results they agree with.

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Cheney has said if she lived in Arizona, she would be voting for Democrat Katie Hobbs over Lake and the Democrat Adrian Fontes over Finchem, and the Great Task political action committee she sponsors announced Friday it is spending more than $500,000 on broadcast and online ads against the GOP candidates. The PAC has booked $390,000 of broadcast spots, according to AdImpact.

“You have a candidate for Governor, Kari Lake, you have a candidate for Secretary of State, Mark Finchem, both of whom have said that they will only honor the results of an election if they agree with it,” Cheney says in the ad. “And if you care about the survival of our Republic, we cannot give people power who will not honor elections.”

Lake and Finchem have been strong supporters of former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, and they haven’t committed to accepting the results of the Nov. 8 election if they lose. Finchem, who called for decertifying President Joe Biden’s win in Arizona, was on the steps of the US Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection.

Lake, a former television news anchor, is a rising star in the GOP who polls show is locked in a close race with Hobbs, the incumbent Arizona secretary of state.

Cheney, who is vice chair of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, is one of the Republican Party’s fiercest critics of Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. She was overwhelmingly defeated by a Trump-backed rival in an August primary but has been waging a campaign against what she calls “anti-democratic” forces.

She formally endorsed Michigan Democratic Representative Elissa Slotkin this week as a “responsible, substantive” member over Tom Barrett, a Republican state senator, in a toss-up race that is one of the keys to GOP hopes of retaking House control after the election.

--With assistance from Bill Allison.

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