Dem
47
GOP
53
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has perfected a skill that Kari Lake has not: getting people to vote for you, even if they hate you. OK, maybe it's not him so much as it is the redness of the state in which he happens to reside, but the fact is that he is about to start a third term in the U.S. Senate, while she is... an out-of-work former TV news anchor.
Lake suffered two related indignities this week. The first of those is that she settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer. She claimed he cheated her out of victory in the 2022 gubernatorial election, he said that was a lie, and hence the suit. The terms of the settlement were not released, but you can safely bet Richter did not get $0 (which is somewhat remarkable, because it is not easy to defame a public official). More significantly, Lake has to shut her yap about being cheated out of victory.
The other indignity is that she has quietly conceded that she did not win this year's Senate election. She doesn't need any more lawsuits on her hands. On top of that, it's easy enough for her to whine and moan about being cheated when her party's presidential candidate is doing the same. But since Trump won this year's election, he's not singing that song anymore. And so, as a result, the cheese stands alone.
And that's where the schadenfreude really lies. Lake did everything to show her devotion to Trump and to Trumpism. And now that he no longer has a use for her, he's cast her aside. He's not supporting any claims she might make about this year's election, he's not helping her with court cases, and he didn't find a job for her in his administration. She thus becomes the latest foolish corpse to be left bleeding on the side of Trump Road. It boggles the mind that every single one of these people thinks that, with them, it will be different. Uh, huh, ask Roy Cohn about that. (Z)