After debate debacle, Kari Lake’s campaign limps to the finish line

When all is said and done, Kari Lake just might surpass Blake Masters and Martha McSally as having run the worst campaign in Arizona political history.

The earlier campaigns were certainly cursed by their candidates’ abject weirdness, off-putting demeanors and revulsion from fellow Republicans. But when it comes to electoral mishaps, Lake takes the cake.

Wednesday’s Senate debate in Phoenix was an opportunity to turn things around a bit. Sure, recent polling data has been quite unkind to her. Sure, many local Republicans have defected to back Rep. Ruben Gallego, her Democratic opponent. Sure, powerful GOP fundraising groups seem to have abandoned her campaign in crunch time, in favor of other races. Sure, she has suffered public embarrassment at the hands of Donald Trump’s own campaign.

But the debate gave Lake a chance to tee off on Gallego — a chance to slime and slander him in person, just as she has been doing online and in interviews for the past year.

And she whiffed.

Among the most memorable moments from the debate was when Lake, while defending the Republican Party’s assault on reproductive choice, repeatedly referred to IVF, or in vitro fertilization, as “UVF.”

Another notable clip features Lake refusing to acknowledge the fact that she lost the 2022 gubernatorial race in Arizona.

If Republicans at the state and national level entered the debate with some skepticism, it’s hard to imagine they feel any more confident after this performance. And it was the only debate Lake and Gallego have scheduled, so with early voting underway, the lasting image Lake left with voters — on the largest platform she’ll have had this cycle — is one of a deranged and self-obsessed conspiracy theorist who’s ignorant about one of the most significant issues in politics: reproductive rights.

I suppose anything is possible and Lake can still win. Gallego, after all, made a puzzling political calculation that I wrote about recently. But less than a month from Election Day, the Lake campaign is clearly limping to the finish line.