GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake entered a new kind of arena at a Wednesday night campaign rally with Ultimate Fighting Championship legend Tito Ortiz.
The “Latinos for Lake” event in the Phoenix area’s West Valley was aimed at courting an increasingly crucial voting bloc in Arizona and nationwide.
“Most of us couldn’t go a round with Tito Ortiz, but most of us could go a round in the fight to save this country,” Lake said to supporters in a packed boxing gym after she entered to the “Rocky” theme song “Gonna Fly Now” like a fighter making her way to the ring.
The former TV news anchor touched on big election issues such as the economy and the border crisis — and the fentanyl problem that crisis has intensified.
“We’re working so hard, and we’re finding out our kids are being peddled pills that are killing them,” she declared.
“We need to make Arizona great again and affordable again,” Lake later added.
She also used the setting to crack a joke about the heat inside the gym itself.
“DC is not ready for a middle-aged woman having a hot flash,” she joked.
‘Besides making quips about the heat, Lake used the rally to boost momentum for her other campaign coalitions.
“If you’re just a gringo like me and want to join one of our coalitions you can,” the firebrand said.
Ortiz, former mayor pro tempore of Huntington Beach, Calif., touted his time in office — and explained why he left California for Florida.
“The crime is just through the roof there,” Ortiz said.
He also used the speech as an opportunity to honor his Latino background.
“We work hard no matter what,” he said.
Lake was extremely competitive among the demographic in her 2022 gubernatorial bid against now-Gov. Katie Hobbs, with a CBS News exit poll showing the Democrat taking 51% of that vote and Lake 47%.
Her opponent, Rep. Ruben Gallego, has also used combat sports to bond with Latino voters.
He held a Canelo Alvarez vs. Jaime Munguía watch party at a West Valley boxing gym last month.
“I remember leaving work sites with my cousins to gather with friends and family to watch epic boxing matches. Chavez, Tyson, De La Hoya,” Gallego said before that fight night. “Far too often, politicians treat Latino voters as a box to check. Our campaign is different: we’re focused on community events — food tours, town halls in Spanish, and this weekend: boxing watch parties.”
More than 2.1 million Arizonans are Hispanic or Latino, according to the 2020 census.
Nationwide, the Pew Research Center estimates that 36.2 million Hispanics will be able to vote in 2024 — a 4 million increase from 2020.
The center says immigration and gun rights are the biggest dividers between Latino Republicans and their Democratic counterparts.
Lake is expected to attend Thursday’s Turning Point Action town hall with former President Donald Trump in north Phoenix.
The Biden-Harris campaign held a Thursday morning news conference ahead of the event.
“Donald Trump and the Republican Party have abandoned Arizonans — they closed their Arizona headquarters after just nine months, a cell phone store has replaced their failed Republican Hispanic Community Center, and state party officials are desperate just to keep the lights on,” the campaign’s Arizona communications director, Jacques Petit, said in a Wednesday night email to reporters. “Meanwhile, the Biden campaign is investing heavily in the state with more than ten field offices and sixty in-state campaign workers.”
The Republican National Committee-backed “Trump Force 47,” which was at Lake’s Thursday rally, has recently started voter-registration efforts specifically in support of the former president.
