Kari Lake to Announce Run for Sinema’s Senate Seat on Tuesday

Kari Lake to Announce Run for Sinema’s Senate Seat on Tuesday.
Republican Kari Lake, a popular former local news anchor, self-described "MAGA Mama Bear" and staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, will launch a campaign for the U.S. Senate at a rally in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Tuesday night, nearly a year after losing the state's gubernatorial race -- a defeat she still refuses to concede.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who left the Democratic Party last year to become an independent, has not yet said whether she'll run for reelection, but Lake is already preparing for a three-way race against Sinema and Rep. Ruben Gallego, the likely Democratic nominee.

ABC News previously reported that Democrats and Republicans alike were expecting an unpredictable contest in a state where a third of the electorate identifies with neither party. The winner could determine the balance of control in one half of Congress; currently Democrats hold the Senate 51-49.

In a statement last month, Lake attacked Gallego and Sinema as "a rubber stamp" for President Joe Biden's agenda.

"Both of them have been in Congress for a combined two decades and have failed to secure the border here in Arizona," she argued.

In announcing his own Senate bid earlier this year, Gallego said, in part, "I'm running for the U.S. Senate because the rich and the powerful don't need any more advocates in Washington -- but families who can't afford groceries do."

Sinema has touted her track record in Congress: "I get there every day to put my head down and just focus on solving problems," she said in a local radio interview in January. Both she and Gallego have said they are focused on border policies.

Lake filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission and Arizona secretary of state's office last week on her intent to run, and she met with several Republican senators on Capitol Hill.

"We have had productive conversations with Kari Lake and her team," Steve Daines, R-Mont., the chairman of the National Republican Senate Committee, told ABC News in a statement. "She is a talented campaigner with an impressive ability to fire up the grassroots."

Lake also had meetings with Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and was spotted walking across the Capitol with Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the third-ranking member in the Senate Republican leadership.

Democrats, meanwhile, argue Lake is a losing candidate with Michigan's Gary Peters, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair, calling her bid "Senate Republicans' worst nightmare."

"Even Republicans didn't want Lake to run because voters rejected her before, and they'll do so again in 2024," Peters said in a statement.

Gallego spokeswoman Hannah Goss said in a statement ahead of Lake's campaign launch that "her extremism should disqualify her from public office — and it will. Again." Goss pointed to Lake's support for abortion restrictions as well as her criticism of her own election loss.

Lake will face a prim