Kari Lake says she won't seek office again

Kari Lake, a GOP Senate candidate in Arizona who lost her campaign against Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) this past election cycle, said she will not seek political office again.

"We know the movement that we have in Arizona, and I will never take that for granted. But there is a corrupt machine here that is hellbent on making sure I never hold office. So, I won't put my family (and myself) through the torture of running again," Lake wrote in a post on X on Saturday.

Gallego, who had served in the House for nearly a decade representing a Phoenix-based seat, secured his victory against Lake, garnering 50.1 percent of the vote compared to Lake's 47.7 percent, a polling aggregate from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) concluded.

Lake announced her Senate bid in October 2023 and entered the race for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s (I-Ariz.) seat as the heavy favorite for the GOP nomination. The Republican is a sharp ally of President-elect Trump, who endorsed her in a video on social media. Lake had previously denied her loss in Arizona's gubernatorial race in 2022.

“I’m really tired of watching our politicians retreat from every single important battle. They’re cowards,” Lake told supporters in October, vowing to be the most “pro-America senator in the entire country.”

“That’s how we got into the mess we’re in right now, because they have surrendered far too many hills. We are on — we’re on the final hill right now, and I’m not surrendering this hill,” she said.

Lake has recently been in the spotlight after Trump nominated her to lead Voice of America (VOA), though Lake’s attacks on the media and history of floating unfounded theories about voter fraud raised eyebrows that the outlet could be used by the federal government as a megaphone to push pro-Trump propaganda around the world. 

In the Saturday post, Lake pledged to support Trump and help revamp the media outlet. Trump has said his vision is for Lake to “ensure that the American values of Freedom and Liberty are broadcast around the World FAIRLY and ACCURATELY, unlike the lies spread by the Fake News Media.”

"I will go to Washington, D.C., return @VOANews to its glory days, and help President Trump Make America Great Again," Lake wrote.