Early results on Tuesday indicated that Karrin Taylor Robson, the Arizona Board of Regents candidate running against Lake, was 8 percentage points in front. McCain, a Trump critic, celebrated as a result on Twitter, as per Raw Story.
“Wow…Lake is getting crushed so far!!! Incredible!” she wrote in a since-deleted tweet. “Everybody better tune in to primetime if this lunatic loses cause she’s gonna go absolutely insane on live tv. Like one for the books, makes Trump look normal insane.”
Why would you delete this masterpiece? #AZGov pic.twitter.com/xg7XLnsMs7
— Stratton Hickcox (@StrattonH) August 3, 2022
However, by Wednesday morning, Lake appeared to have rebounded, and the former Fox News analyst was ahead by 12,000 votes with 81% of the votes counted. In response, McCain quickly backtracked, claiming that “my initial predictions were right despite the initial excitement of Robson pulling ahead.”
“Congratulations to my home state for full making the transition to full-blown MAGA/conspiracy theory/fraudster,” she wrote in a tweet. “The voters have spoken – be careful what you wish for…”
One of the most recent proxy wars between Donald Trump’s supporters and establishment Republicans, whom the former president frequently branded as “RINOS,” or Republicans in name only take place in Arizona’s primary election.
Trump, on the other hand, has a history of hatred for the McCain family that goes back to the 2016 presidential campaign, when the then-candidate brutally attacked the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. When he said at the time that he preferred “people who weren’t captured,” Trump incited outrage by suggesting that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, was a less deserving candidate due to his time spent behind bars.
“This is the Cindy McCain branch of the Republican Party,” said of the establishment GOP on a podcast. “They’re not Republicans. They’re globalists and they want – I think they want an end to America.”
Months earlier, Lake suggested in a campaign video that the party needs to “replace that disgusting, dirty McCain Swamp with, maybe, I don’t know … a Lake? You need somebody who is going to represent ‘we the people.’ ”
“What trash this woman is,” McCain responded to the video at the time.
Lake shot back: “Thanks for sharing our video, Meg!”