On Saturday, an overwhelming majority of Arizona Republican state committeemen voted to place Gina Swoboda in the top spot of the state’s Republican Party. Swoboda became the consensus candidate after former Chair Jeff DeWit resigned in the wake of what he described as a blackmail effort by senatorial candidate Kari Lake.
In what some Republicans believed was a swipe at Lake’s preferred candidate Jim O’Connor, President Trump swiftly endorsed Swoboda along with most of the party’s elected officials. Shortly after, Lake endorsed her as well.
Swoboda easily defeated Arizona Corporation Commissioner Jim O’Connor, who reportedly had advance knowledge of Lake’s impending coup of AZGOP Chairman Jeff DeWit and was the choice of Lake’s team to take over the party. The Trump endorsement of Swoboda, who is seen as a close associate of DeWit and other party officials, was likely the knockout blow to O’Connor’s effort.
In a telling sign of how many at the meeting disapproved of Lake secretly recording DeWit and waiting ten months to release the video, Lake herself was soundly booed by the raucous crowd while she was introducing Swoboda during the nomination process.
Long-time political consultant Constantin Querard, tweeted:
I expected some boos for Lake, but that was pretty significant for a room filled with core party activists. A lot more @sherifflamb1 stickers than just two weeks ago as well.
“Wow, Kari Lake is getting booed.” tweeted attendee Johnny Melton, who added “Holy moly. She has NO love in this room.”
Wow. Kari Lake is getting booed.
— Johnny V. Melton (@RinoLivesMatter) January 27, 2024
When asked by one reporter where he was during the event, Jeff DeWit responded “I’m not at the State Committee annual meeting, which makes me sad honestly because I’ve been there for so many years, but I’m glued to my phone getting a ton of updates of the total mess that Kari caused. I hope that the overwhelming mountain of boos Lake got from the almost 2000 Republican voting members of the state party Helps her realize that the party needs and wants unity, not secret and edited recordings, which she has spent the last week fundraising off of that only bring divisiveness and chaos to a time that our country needs to heal”
Arizona’s widely respected Republican National Committeewoman, Lori Klein Corbin, announced during the meeting that she would not seek re-election and urged fellow conservative women to consider running to support the former president and current front runner in the Republican presidential primary race, Donald Trump.
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