Arizona abortion ruling is a win Kari Lake didn’t need in key Senate race

The Republican former TV anchor is trying to soften her election-denying image against the Democratic congressman Ruben Gallego in one of the year's most closely watched races

On a recent Tuesday morning, at a retirement community on the western edge of Phoenix's sprawling desert metropolis, Kari Lake beamed at the graying crowd and introduced her guest, the Montana senator Steve Daines, the Republican charged with winning back the party's Senate majority in Washington.

His presence sent the message that establishment Republicans were fully behind Lake, a former TV news anchor in Phoenix whose embrace of election denialism and fealty to Donald Trump made her a darling of his Maga movement but probably cost her the 2022 race for Arizona governor, a loss she has never formally conceded.