Former President Donald Trump is offering campaign advice for Republican Kari Lake‘s bid for a Senate seat in Arizona.
Trump urged Lake and Bernie Moreno, a fellow Trump loyalist running against Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio, to campaign “almost exclusively” on immigration in a pair of posts to Truth Social on Thursday.
“Kari Lake and Bernie Moreno should be running almost exclusively on the Safety and Security of their States, not allowing Illegal Aliens to get anywhere near Arizona or Ohio, and getting the ones that are already in – OUT!” Trump wrote.
Former President Donald Trump and Arizona Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake at a Trump rally in Mesa, Arizona, on October 9, 2022. On September 12, 2024, Trump urged Lake and fellow GOP Senate candidate Bernie Moreno to run “almost exclusively” on the issue of immigration.
Mario Tama
In a statement emailed to Newsweek on Thursday, a Lake campaign spokesperson said: “We agree!”
Moreno spokesperson Reagan McCarthy called Trump’s advice “spot on” in a statement to Newsweek.
“Sherrod Brown is a radical left Democrat whose horrific votes and policies have led to the disaster in Springfield,” McCarthy said. “We won’t stop until we hold Sherrod Brown and every one of his radical left enablers responsible for the havoc they have inflicted upon Ohio.”
Trump’s Truth Social posts alluded to an unsubstantiated claim concerning migrants from Haiti abducting and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. The former president promoted the claim during his presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday.
“Bernie Moreno has a very good chance of winning Ohio against a Radical Left Democrat, Sherrod Brown, with what is happening in Springfield, and other parts of the State,” Trump wrote. “Ohio is being inundated with Illegal Migrants, mostly from Haiti, who are taking over Towns and Villages at a level and rate never seen before.”
There is no credible evidence to support the migrant pet-eating claim, which has been rebuked by Springfield officials and others. However, Trump, his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, and others have continued to spread the conspiracy theory.
The former president also claimed on Thursday that Harris and President Joe Biden were allowing millions of criminals to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump included special counsel Jack Smith—a U.S. citizen who is prosecuting him on federal felony election subversion charges—as an example of the type of migrant criminals that he claims are crossing the border.
“Comrade Kamala Harris and her now Missing in Action Boss, Crooked Joe Biden, have allowed more than 21 Million people into our Country, including prisoners, terrorists, seriously deranged people (like Jack Smith!), rapists, drug dealers, and others too bad to even mention,” wrote Trump. “Ohio & Arizona – GO MAGA!”
Trump went on to praise Lake as “one of the strongest in the Country on Border Security” while maintaining that her opponent, Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego, is “in favor of Open Borders” and “allowing people to pour into and destroy Arizona.”
Last month, the Arizona Police Association, that state’s biggest police association, announced that it was endorsing Gallego just days after its president delivered an in-person endorsement of Trump at a Phoenix-area rally that also featured Lake.
Recent polls have consistently shown Gallego holding a significant lead over Lake, with a pair of polls released last month showing the congressman with double-digit leads.
Lake has dismissed the unfavorable results as “garbage” while citing her own internal polling and GOP-sponsored surveys showing a closer race as examples of “real polls.”
In Ohio, which has had a clear Republican lean over the last several election cycles, the race appears to be tightening, although Brown has been leading in all major polls released so far.
