Liz Cheney urges voters not to vote on Arizona GOP nominees

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Liz Cheney urges voters not to vote on Arizona GOP nominees

TEMPE, Ariz. - Rep. Liz Cheney urged voters to not vote on Arizona's Republican nominees for governor and secretary of state in the midterm election, casting them as existential threats to U.S. democracy.

If you care about democracy and you care about the survival of our republic, then you need to understand that we cannot give people power who tell us that they will not honor elections, Cheney, R-Wyo. Wednesday night at an event at Arizona State University.

The Republican nominee for governor, and Mark Finchem, the GOP nominee for secretary of state, both put denial of the 2020 election results in their state at the forefront of their campaigns. Lake called President Joe Biden an illegitimate president, while Finchem has said he was secretary of state when Biden won Arizona, and he wouldn't have certified the 2020 election results.

Both have claimed that the midterm elections may be tainted by fraud without evidence.

They looked at all the law, the facts and the rulings of the courts, and they said it doesn't matter to them, Cheney said of Lake and Finchem.

She said that what happens here in Arizona is important for the nation and the future functioning of our constitutional republic.

Later during the event, which was put on by the McCain Institute, a think tank named for the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Cheney noted that for almost 40 years I've been voting Republican. She said she did not know that I had ever voted for a Democrat. If I were in Arizona now, I absolutely would like to be governor and secretary of state. Lake and Finchem are locked in tight races against Democratic governornatorial nominee Katie Hobbs, the current secretary of state, and Democratic secretary of state nominee Adrian Fontes, currently the Maricopa County recorder, according to polling. Arizona has gone from being solidly red to deeply purple, and it was one of the most critical presidential swing states in 2020 when Biden became the first Democrat to flip the state blue in a presidential election since 1996.

Cheney said Wednesday that we can't be in a position where we elect people who don't uphold the sanctity of elections.

She said that what happens here in Arizona is important not only for Arizona, but it is important for the nation and the future functioning of our constitutional republic.

In August of this year, Cheney, an outspoken critic of Trump's election lies, lost her primary in a landslide after Trump endorsed her opponent. After his impeachment on the U.S. Capitol, she became a top Republican on the House committee that he was investigating and his role in it, and became one of his top targets for political retribution.

Speaking to more than 200 people in Tempe, Cheney said it was important for us Republicans to demand that they do not accept this unraveling of the democracy. She criticized other Republicans by name for supporting those election-denying candidates, including Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is going to campaign with Lake this month.

She said he should not come here to stump for her. She also took issue with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who campaigned with Lake earlier Wednesday.

Cruz, she said, absolutely knows that what he argues is unconstitutional, that what she is saying is unconstitutional. She said they knew it. There have to be consequences for the Republicans.