GOP Sec. of State Candidate Exits Race; Warns About Plan to Turn AZ Blue
Former Republican state Sen. Lori Klein Corbin announced on Friday she is suspending her campaign to be Arizona’s next secretary of state and issued a warning about how the Democrats plan to flip the Grand Canyon State to blue.
In an exclusive interview with The Western Journal, Klein Corbin said she entered the race to challenge incumbent GOP Secretary of State Michele Reagan, because of her fears the elections official would lose to the Democratic candidate in the fall.
The Arizona Republic reported that a poll released last summer found Reagan’s favorability rating at 17 percent, likely due to some high profile snafus that have occurred during her tenure overseeing the state’s elections.
“The Democrats are going to use everything she has done to try to defeat her in a general election,” Klein Corbin said, adding that they value the prize of taking over the state’s election process.
“It is a target of (George) Soros for one reason, that is because (the secretary of state) oversees how the voters are actually found eligible,” the conservative leader contended.
No Democrat has held the office since the 1990s, according to The Washington Post.
However, the left-leaning ballot access group iVote plans to spend at least $5 million across key swing states — including Arizona — to elect Democrat secretaries of state, according to The Post.
The front-runner Democrat candidate is currently state Sen. Katie Hobbs, though the Arizona Republic reported earlier this year that Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton was mulling a run, but looks to be opting for a U.S. House race instead.
In a statement released on Friday, Klein Corbin said she was suspending her candidacy for secretary of state because “personal issues have arisen that make it impossible for me to continue the campaign.” The former lawmaker did not elaborate upon those issues in the interview.
She did predict that her stepping down will make it easier for GOP businessman challenger Steve Gaynor to consolidate the conservative vote and defeat Reagan (who has no relation to the former president). As a national Republican committeewoman, Klein Corbin cannot endorse a candidate in the contest.
She warned fellow Arizonans about the Democrats’ intention to follow the “California model” and flip the state from red to blue.
“How they took over California and Colorado was by slamming the rolls with voters,” said Corbin, arguing the Democrats do not value the rule of law in relation to voter eligibility.
Klein Corbin noted, “Historically the Democrats like to bloat the rolls and have people over-voting. Right now this is a serious issue for Arizona if we put our election process in the wrong hands.”
President Donald Trump carried Arizona by 3.5 percent in 2016. Currently, the state has a Republican governor and GOP controlled legislature.
Both of the state’s U.S. senators are Republican (albeit moderate, anti-Trump John McCain and Jeff Flake) and its U.S. House delegation is currently split between four Republicans and four Democrats, with one GOP-leaning district to be decided by a special election later this month.
Klein Corbin says she will continue to serve as a Republican committeewoman and as coordinator of the Western Conservative Conference.
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