Posted on 08/14/2022 3:16:35 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
How much was former President Donald Trump’s endorsement, plus 27 years as a television news anchor, worth to Kari Lake in her successful bid for the Republican nomination for governor of Arizona? Millions.
Lake bested wealthy businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robson 47.9% to 43.2% in the Arizona GOP gubernatorial primary despite being outspent 18 to 1 on radio and broadcast and cable television. Lake spent just shy of $827,000 on the air, according to the most recently available figures, while Taylor Robson blanketed the airwaves with $15.3 million in campaign advertising. Lake also got clobbered by Taylor Robson on total spending, $18.4 million to $3.6 million.
“Kari Lake had so many built-in advantages over the rest of the field,” Barrett Marson, a Republican operative in Phoenix, said Wednesday. “I don’t think any amount of ground game, any amount of money, or any substantial policy differences could have stopped a Trump-backed media star.”
Marson, an ally of term-limited Gov. Doug Ducey (R), who endorsed Taylor Robson, supported former GOP Rep. Matt Salmon, who ended his gubernatorial campaign before the Aug. 2 primary. Some Republicans share Marson’s view, saying it’s easy to take shots at Taylor Robson’s campaign after the fact.
But other GOP operatives, particularly those worried Lake puts the party’s hold on the governor’s mansion in jeopardy in the midterm elections, complain Taylor Robson’s campaign was mismanaged. Lake is a vocal proponent of Trump's unsupported stolen election claims, a position that could be problematic in Arizona, a bona fide swing state.
The Taylor Robson advisers catching the most heat are Doug Goodyear, a Republican operative who works for government relations firm DCI Group and is a longtime Ducey associate, and Jon Seaton, a GOP strategist. Some of their Republican critics say something must have gone awry with their advertising strategy to come up short after outspending Lake by a whopping $14.4 million.
Other gripes were more specific.
“It was her campaign to lose after Matt Salmon dropped out, and she lost it,” a Republican insider in Arizona said. “There is always the balance of strong ads that get to millions of people — and the echo chamber that they hear ... at the grassroots level. You had none of that with Karrin.”
“They had zero ground game,” this GOP insider added, saying Taylor Robson’s campaign paled in comparison to previous winning efforts from such Republicans as former Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain, each being elected several times between them. This Republican requested anonymity to speak candidly, as did other GOP critics of Taylor Robson’s campaign. Goodyear did not respond to an email requesting comment.
But Seaton, speaking to the Washington Examiner at length, said the criticisms were baseless.
To begin with, Seaton said the Taylor Robson field operation was robust. The campaign visited more than 150,000 homes, contacted more than 225,000 GOP primary voters, and deployed grassroots volunteers to dozens of events — rodeos, parades, and party gatherings. Seaton emphasized that Taylor Robson began her race with virtually zero name recognition, a problem given the peculiarities of this campaign.
Lake and Taylor Robson were both first-time candidates running for an open seat. But Seaton said Lake had the advantages of incumbency thanks to Trump’s endorsement and being near-universally known from her decades as a television news anchor in Phoenix's dominant media market. With all those challenges in mind, Seaton said he was proud of Taylor Robson and the campaign she ran, notwithstanding she lost to Lake by 4.7 percentage points.
“We needed to increase Karrin’s name ID from minimal to competitive and had very little time to do it. The only way to do that is spending money on television to tell her story; that’s a decision we made as a team,” Seaton said. “You never want to fall short. But she did a good job of introducing herself to voters, and they clearly liked what she had to say.”
Lake is facing Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) in the general election.
They can spend all they money on ads that they want. It doesn’t alter the reality of food and energy prices. Reality is the real campaign spending now.
They actually differed very little as far as programs were concerned. Robson had the money, Lake the recognition.
What really soured me on Robson was the negativity of her campaign.
She started viciously negative right off the bat.
It took me quite a long time to figure out what she is about (and I had to do extensive searches), but I have learned all the bad about Kari Lake.
Robson lost me right there!
You do not trash fellow Republican!
robson lost because her milque toast message sucked. Kari is saying what we’re all thinking, the 2020 election was a fraud and we’re over ran with illegal aliens
Wealthy Businesswoman?!???
Please she is a Trophy Wife… cut the crap
In my younger days (many decades ago) I worked on several campaigns in Republican primaries.
If we lost we stepped up and took responsibility.
If you didn’t win you failed—and it was your fault.
There are no excuses.
Even vote fraud by your opponent is not a legitimate excuse—part of the job of the campaign is stopping that.
Their cash is trash....Look what happened to Meg Whitman running for CA governor....I think she was a billionaire and spent more of her own money on the election than anyone anyone in CA history. She lost big after it was learned she hired illegal house servants...
Don’t even think there wasn’t cheating going on in Maricopa County
this recent Primary. I believe they cheated just like 2020.
However, Lake’s lead was beyond the margin of steal cheat.
Maricopa settled for narrowing the margin of victory for Lake.
That’s quite a diatribe in defense of a Unipartier backed by Uniparty luminaries.
I did say a slight resemblance. Particularly the eyes and the feigned smile.
This is why I do not care much about The Washington Examiner. Too many David M. Drucker's writing for them, as far as I am concerned.
She lost David, get over it. Katie Hobbs will be the next loser.
“Goodyear did not respond to an email requesting comment.”
He was too tired.
Lake was on the Warroom plenty-o-times. [For free I assume]
Her husband is in his early 90s tho. Quite an age gap, which makes the charges of “trophy wife” more fitting. That’s pry one of the reasons he wasn’t seen on the campaign trail. I just don’t understand what a woman in her late 50s sees in a rich old man in his 90s other than dollar signs TBH.
Where did Karrin Taylor Robson’s campaign get the $15.3 million plus to spend on an AZ gubernatorial election?
Did most of it come from out of state?
A lesson many pols should learn is that ad saturation annoys lots of voters, especially if they perceive the ads as disingenuous, unfairly negative, empty and vapid, or just a waste of time. Throwing away a fortune on ads signals that the candidate is in the thrall of consultants and big contributors, has weak judgment, thinks they can buy anything with someone else’s money — and that they would govern the same way. A few smart, interesting ads beat a slue of repetition.
I received at least 100 fliers for Robson. They went direct to trash. On the radio, I was and am more interested in someone being interviewed for an hour than on 100 ads screaming, “Fake Lake”.
In the end, it was endorsements by Ducey and Pence for Robson, combined with Robson’s horrible record on the Board of Regents (controlling the super liberal universities in Arizona) that caused me to vote for Lake.
I didn’t care about Trump’s endorsement, but the debate on FR’s Arizona board may have influenced me. I care more about what people on FR think than about what Pence (or Trump!) think.
“Where did Karrin Taylor Robson’s campaign get the $15.3 million plus to spend on an AZ gubernatorial election?”
Her hubby is a billionaire. VERY OLD husband....92 years old. She’s 58.
I’m older than Karen Robson. NO WAY would I want to be married to a 90+ year old woman!
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