PHOENIX — Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has found an ally in former Texas State Sen. Don Huffines.
Huffines, who ran his own gubernatorial campaign earlier this year, has helped Lake fundraise. And this week, Huffines has been on the ground in Phoenix as the votes continue to come in.
“I feel like Kari Lake is a special candidate and will be a special governor,” Huffines told Texas Scorecard. “I think that she will be similar to Ron DeSantis in Florida. But the fact that she’ll be a governor of a border state makes her position more important. I think she’ll prove what it means for a state to be sovereign. And the border issue is the foundation of that.”
A signature piece of Lake’s platform has been her commitment to declaring an invasion at the southern border, as millions of illegal aliens have flooded across since President Joe Biden took office last year.
It was also a centerpiece of Huffines’ own platform, and Huffines said he spent Wednesday working with Lake and her transition team on her border plan. So far, however, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has declined to do so, despite calls from the Republican Party of Texas and several border counties.
Huffines hopes her move will trigger Abbott to follow suit.
“Every Republican governor in the United States of America should unite to do whatever they can to assist it any way they can to stop the invasion,” said Huffines.
Votes continue to trickle in from Arizona’s two largest counties: Maricopa and Pima. Both counties have said it could be days—or weeks—until final results are tabulated. While Lake still trails Hobbs as of publishing, her campaign has expressed confidence that ballots dropped off on Election Day will push her over the top.
“It is certainly very concerning to me, and probably to most Americans, that it is taking so long to count the ballots. It’s inexcusable. Many states deal with the same number of ballots and more mail-in ballots and provisional ballots that Arizona deals with. But they certainly get their work done much quicker. It’s very concerning because the more time that goes by, the more opportunity there is for malfeasance.”
Still, Huffines says he is confident she will pull off the victory.
“They’re very confident. And when teams like that are very confident, they’re going to prevail.”
Don Huffines is the founder of the Huffines Liberty Foundation, which exists to “promote individual rights, fiscal restraint, personal responsibility, limited government, and social conservatism.”
