Kari Lake woos D.C. lobbyists at fundraiser, private meetings as Arizona Senate race heats up

• Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake has been quietly meeting with lobbyists and raising money in Washington in recent weeks, after years of bucking the establishment wing of the GOP.
• "I don't give a damn what the lobbyists think ... I don't want a seat at the table with the political elites," Lake wrote on X in January.

Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake has been quietly meeting with lobbyists and raising money in Washington in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. Lake has built her political brand around her willingness to buck the D.C. establishment wing of the GOP.

On Tuesday, Lake met with about a dozen lobbyists in the nation's capital, and the following day she attended a campaign fundraiser that was heavy with D.C. hired guns.

Lake also met separately with a top GOP lobbyist recently to strategize how to get her in front of even more industry players, according to sources familiar with the meeting. Like others in this story, they were granted anonymity to describe private events.

The Arizona Senate race is poised to be one of the most competitive and high profile contests in the nation this fall. President Joe Biden won the state by a mere 10,000 votes in 2020, less than half a percent.

Arizona's late primary date -- July 30 -- means the Senate race will also likely be one of the most expensive in the country, as large fields of candidates on both sides spend the next five months raising money to duke it out for the nomination.

Lake's whirlwind D.C. schedule marks a significant departure from her message to voters in January. "I don't give a damn what the lobbyists think," Lake wrote in a tweet on X.

"I don't care how much they vilify me in the media. I don't want a seat