Former President Donald Trump returned to Arizona in his characteristic rock-show rally style on Friday night and offered a late-in-the-race seal of approval to several of his favored candidates, including Republicans Kari Lake for governor and Blake Masters for U.S. Senate.
The former president took the stage in Prescott Valley about 8 p.m., an hour later than scheduled, delivering a 1 hour, 40-minute speech that oscillated between false claims of election fraud, attacks on Democrats from Joe Biden to U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, and proclaiming his own administration a success.
He also hinted at his future political plans, though he said the midterm elections were the first order of business.
“You have an opportunity to vote for an outstanding slate of true conservative warriors, many of whom I know,” he said, calling Lake and Masters up onstage beside him, who offered their praise to the former president.
“I just want to thank you for saving this country,” Masters told Trump, decrying the leadership of Joe Biden, saying it delivered “chaos and destruction.”
After hugging Trump onstage, Lake told the crowd not to “sit back and wait for Superman to come in and rescue us … we’ve got to stand up, we’ve got to vote, we’ve got to get active.
“Now I want to say for the record, for the record, I do believe that Superman is coming back and hopefully he’s coming back soon,” she said looking over her shoulder at Trump.
People came from around the state and elsewhere, including Hawaii and California, to support the former president, nearly filling the arena set up to seat 5,800 people. Some people waited in the 100-degree heat for hours to get into Findlay Toyota Center, some filtered out early as the event stretched past 9:30 p.m.
Nancy McGill, 61, woke at 5:30 a.m. at her Tempe home and headed to the rally. Now a volunteer for Lake’s campaign, it was Trump’s endorsement that clinched her support.
“I feel that’s gold,” McGill said. “Anybody that Donald Trump endorses, he has vetted very well.”
Jan. 6 committee, Bowers criticized
Trump spoke to each of the issues Republican primary voters typically cite as important to them, including the border and education and the economy through the lens of high inflation. But the crowd’s chants and cheers swelled when he talked about his false election fraud claims or the “unselect committee” investigating his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The crowd booed at the mention of the committee. One woman yelled out, “We need you, Trump!”
The day prior, the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee heard testimony in an eighth hearing that Trump refused to call off the rioters on a day that grew so intense that the Secret Service detail assigned to former Vice President Mike Pence began calling loved ones to say goodbye.
Trump also attacked witnesses who testified during those hearings, including Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Mesa Republican who rose to national prominence for withstanding Trump’s attempts to overturn the election.
In turn, Trump pumped up Bowers’ opponent in the Aug. 2 primary election, David Farnsworth.
Trump reminded the audience of Bowers’ transgressions against him, calling him a “RINO” and a “coward” and claiming he “disgraced himself” and Arizona with his testimony and alleged backsliding on illegal immigration.
Split looms: Pence and Ducey back Taylor Robson as Trump stumps for Lake
Trump’s return to Prescott Valley offered a visual reminder of the schism in the Republican Party. While he drew thousands to his rally, a few hundred people attended invite-only events earlier in the day in support of Lake’s leading opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Pence, who split with Trump after resisting pressure to overturn the 2020 election result, campaigned on Taylor Robson’s behalf.
The Friday evening rally in Prescott Valley drew a who’s-who among Trump loyalists in Arizona politics, including state Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward, state Sen. Wendy Rogers of Flagstaff and notorious former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is running for mayor of Fountain Hills and got a standing ovation and raucous applause that even Trump noticed.
“I didn’t know you were that popular, Joe,” Trump remarked.
If there was a star of the show that wasn’t Trump — it was Lake. While other speakers claimed just a few minutes on the rally stage, Lake energized the crowd for over 20 minutes. She frequently paused to allow cheers, or chants of “Build the wall” or “U-S-A.”
She delivered a populist appeal that touted the energy behind her campaign, particularly calling out younger voters in the room who had “so much taken from them” during the COVID-19 pandemic and at one point saying some of the “dumbest people I know have a college degree.”
Lake, a former Fox 10 news anchor, attacked the media in the room — many of whom she’d stopped for interviews with before the rally — without mentioning her own nearly three-decade career in television.
Lake called Biden an illegitimate president, said that Trump won in 2020, and said she would restore faith in elections without offering specifics of how she would do that. “No more stolen elections,” she said to cheers. After dozens of lawsuits across the nation and an Arizona Senate-led ballot review, there is no evidence to support the claim Trump won.
She pledged to finish the wall and encouraged voters to return their ballots by mail, noting she was “not a fan” of mail-in voting and attacking the state’s established voting system, though the crowd didn’t bite.
“Go home, fill it out and mail it out, do not use the drop boxes, OK?” she said. When just a few people in the crowd clapped, Lake quickly quipped, “I guess no one has a mail-in, that’s great.”
Arizona candidates share spotlight
The event offered down-ballot candidates a few minutes in the spotlight, which could prove pivotal for undecided voters and in races with many candidates where the margins of victory might be smaller.
Candidate for attorney general Abraham Hamadeh, a former prosecutor who is in a six-way primary, painted himself as the antithesis to establishment, weak Republicans. He said the state’s southern border was a “war zone” intentionally ignored by the federal government, before pivoting to elections.
“Our elections have been hijacked,” he said. “Our justice system has been corrupted. It’s time to restore law and order and hold those who seek to undermine our country accountable. I want justice for what they’ve done to us. It’s time we lock up some people and put handcuffs on them.”
When that prompted cheers of “Lock her up,” Hamadeh responded in kind: “Oh, we’ve got some motivated patriots, don’t we?”
Trump, who has suggested he will run for office again in 2024, made repeated references to doing so while onstage, though made no formal announcement.
“This is the year we’re going to take back the House, we’re going to take back the Senate,” he said before cheers drowned out his words. “And in 2024, the most important year, we’re going to take back our beautiful, magnificent White House.”
Pam Allgrove of Prescott Valley walked four blocks from her home to listen to Trump and his slate of candidates. She wore a denim ball cap with “TRUMP” spelled out in shiny sequins, flag-themed hair bands in her braids and a flag-adorned blouse.
The country is going down the “wrong path,” she said, and she hopes to see leaders elected who will fix problems at the border and in public schools, rather than those who look to enrich their own pockets — like too many current leaders are doing, she said.
“They stand there and watch and they don’t act,” she said. “That’s not right.”
Trump is the only politician who did what he said he would do, Allgrove said. She expects Trump-endorsed candidates to model after him.
“If they say they’re going to do something, he’s going to make sure they do it,” she said.
Republic reporters Ray Stern and Greg Svirnovskiy contributed to this article.
Reach reporter Stacey Barchenger at stacey.barchenger@arizonarepublic.com or 480-416-5669. Follow her on Twitter @sbarchenger.
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