Election denier Kari Lake Arizona’s campaign committee to support her efforts to become governor-elect in Arizona has been in an uproar last week, despite the flow of money from Corporate America. Katie Hobbs scored a razor-sharp victory over Big Rye’s all-out supporter Lake last Tuesday — though the former TV anchor refuses to admit it.
The Republican Governors Association spent at least $11 million on Lake’s campaign on a political committee that combined corporate cash and black money from politically-minded nonprofits that don’t disclose donors. The RGA, chaired by current Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, endorsed the opposition in the primary. He told CNN in July: [about the 2020 election] without proof. ”
After the Jan. 6, 2021 riots, many businesses suspended political contributions to members of Congress who opposed Joe Biden’s presidential nomination. Most people have resumed donating to those who voted to overturn the election. Microsoft is one of the companies that put his finger on the pause button. The software giant has also invested in a democracy initiative called Democracy Forward, which supports election security and local journalism in the United States and abroad.
Tech giants Google, General Motors, Aflac, Wells Fargo, Blue Cross Blue Shield, FedEx, and Walgreens all donated more than $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association.
But on August 18, just over two weeks into Lake’s run for governor, Microsoft donated $150,000 to the RGA. The software giant wasn’t the only one to donate to committees backing elections that would deny gubernatorial candidates across the country, including Lake. Nor was he RGA’s largest corporate contributor.
In 2022, Missouri-based Centene Management Company will contribute $1.5 million to RGA. Koch Industries, a Kansas-based conglomerate, donated $1.25 million. Phil Knight, co-founder of Philadelphia-based Comcast Financial Agency Corporation, AT&T, Pfizer and Nike, all donated more than $250,000 of his money to RGA. Tech giants Google, General Motors, Aflac, Wells Fargo, Blue Cross Blue Shield, FedEx, and Walgreens all donated more than $100,000 to RGA.
Capital & Main has reached out to both companies for comment. Only Blue Cross Blue Shield responded via email prior to publication. “Our commitment is to improve the quality, access and affordability of healthcare for all Americans, and we support organizations in achieving that goal,” the statement said. “We do not agree on all issues or policy positions, nor do we dictate where our support will go within those organizations, but we are committed to building a more affordable and equitable health system. We will continue to support policy makers from both parties who work with us on behalf of the nearly 115 million Blue Cross and Blue Shield members.”
RGA also raised millions of dollars from major Republican donors such as Robert Bigelow, Miriam Adelson and Richard Euline, as well as the Concord Fund, a dark money group linked to Leonard Leo, who is credited with rebuilding the U.S. Supreme Court. I have received
The RGA channeled a lot of money into Lake’s campaign through the Yuma County Republican Central Committee, Axios reported. From September 28th, he had airtime booked through November 8th in this joint campaign between the political group and Lake. One of these ads featured a homophobic far-right pastor named Justin Erickson. On the spot, Erickson portrays himself as a small businessman dealing with inflation and denounces liberal Democrats. It can be misleading.
“Despite that spending, Kari Lake still underperformed, with independents who had just run out of crazy rhetoric performing the worst.”
~ Stacey Pearson, political strategist
In a 2014 sermon on homosexuality, Erickson said, “Fifty percent, fifty percent of the gay LGBT-Now-Q community has AIDS. On the sex offender registry, one in twenty is a child molester.” .” mother jones report. In a 2016 sermon, he called Islam “diabolical” and Erikson argued that women should be subordinate to men.
Evan Vorpahl is a senior researcher at True North Research. True North Research, a non-profit research firm that tracks the role of money in politics, helped analyze Capital & Main’s campaign filings. In his view, corporations and right-wing donors are attacking “our democracy and freedom.” “They should be held accountable for the extremism whose dollars helped him buy RGA,” he wrote in an email.
According to Arizona-based political strategist Stacey Pearson, it’s not clear whether spending made a difference in an election in which voters rejected extremism in a close race.
“Despite that spending, Kari Lake still underperformed, performing the worst with the independents who just ended up with crazy rhetoric. They took off their tinfoil hats,” Pearson said. Told. Hobbs’ margin in Arizona, though narrow, was more than 60% higher for him than Biden’s in 2020.
If corporate cash and dark money can’t “outweigh Kari Lake’s crazy spending,” as Pearson argues, it could make a bigger difference in low-key voting races like state attorney general. there is. Former Army Reserve Intelligence Officer Abe Hamade isn’t a flashier election denier than the cowboy hat-wearing failed Lake and Mark Finkem of the Arizona Secretary of State who endorse the QAnon conspiracy theory. He is in a tight race with Democratic rival Chris Mays, who currently leads by a few votes. The Attorney General’s Office oversees state election law enforcement and is responsible for prosecuting election fraud in the state.
If Hamade wins, he will thank donors from General Motors, Comcast, Pfizer, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, and the American Chamber of Commerce, as well as many others. They all donated to the Republican Association of Attorneys General, another campaign committee that accepts unlimited corporate cash. RAGA donated about $2.8 million to support Hamade’s candidacy, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics. “These election losses — the more money you put in, the more attention you get, especially when it comes to attorneys general and secretaries of state.” Based in North Carolina Democratic election strategist Doug Wilson said:
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