Meghan McCain, the daughter of late GOP Senator John McCain, mocked U.S. Senate Republican candidate Kari Lake in a post on social media that has taken off on Saturday.
Lake, a staunch Donald Trump ally who became a household name after the 2022 midterm election, has attracted national attention to the race in Arizona as she faces off against Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego as both campaigns mobilized resources and tried to energize voters. The Senate seat was left open after independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema decided not to run for reelection.
While the final Senate race in Arizona is yet to be called as of Sunday morning, Gallego is narrowly ahead of Lake, according to projections from the Associated Press, with Gallego leading with 49.7 percent of the vote compared with Lake’s 48.2 percent. Around 87 percent of the vote has been counted so far.
However, President-elect Trump did win the state over Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, in this year’s presidential election.
In response to Gallego being projected as the winner in Arizona, McCain shared a meme on X, formerly Twitter, of Lake with the caption stating, “Get in loser, we’re going losing.”
The post has since garnered over 895,000 views and 13,000 likes as of Sunday morning.
Lake and Meghan McCain, a political commentator and former co-host of The View, have long held a feud after Lake made a series of disparaging remarks about her father and the moderate Republican influence he still holds in Arizona.
Newsweek has reached out to Lake’s campaign via email for comment.
John McCain, who ran for president in 2008, held office in Arizona for 35 years before his death in 2018 when he was 81 years old.
Meghan McCain previously said in September she would not endorse Harris or Trump this year, adding that she is “still a principled conservative, like my Dad was his entire life.” She did not say, however, who she would vote for or whether she would cast a ballot at all.
John McCain was frequently a target of Trump during the last years of his political career. Trump infamously said during a 2015 campaign stop that McCain, a Navy veteran who was a prisoner of war for over five years in Vietnam, was “not a hero” because Trump prefers “people that weren’t captured.”
Multiple members of the McCain family have hit out at Trump for his disparaging comments about the late senator, with Meghan McCain calling Trump “a piece of s***, election-denying huckster…” in an X post earlier this year.
Roy Rochlin and Rebecca NOBLE / AFP/Getty Images
Meghan McCain’s X post on Saturday comes as the significance of this Senate race extends beyond Arizona. The state’s growing population, increasingly diverse demographics, and status as a swing state have made it a focal point for national political strategy.
Since jumping into politics, Lake has been a controversial figure, particularly for her repeated claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential race, which have endeared her to Trump loyalists but alienated more moderate and independent voters. Lake also challenged her own gubernatorial election, claiming she was the rightful winner in 2022 after losing to Katie Hobbs.
Lake, a former television news anchor, built her campaign around issues that resonate with the Republican base. Her political messaging focuses on border security, election integrity, and limiting government overreach.
Meanwhile, Gallego, a five-term congressman and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, has advocated for policies focused on health care access, immigration reform, and veterans’ affairs. He represents Arizona’s 7th congressional district, which includes much of central Phoenix, and has made a name for himself as a pragmatic progressive willing to work across the aisle on certain issues.
His campaign highlights his experience in Congress and his service in the Iraq War, appealing to Arizona’s significant population of veterans and working-class voters. Gallego has also been critical of Lake’s election denial rhetoric, saying that such claims threaten democratic institutions.
Polling ahead of the election showed the race was either candidate’s to win. However, polls frequently suggest Gallego is the favorite to win. An Emerson College poll conducted between October 30 and November 2 found Gallego leading Lake by five points. A poll from Insider Advantage that was conducted between November 1 and 2 found a closer contest with Gallego only leading Lake by two points.
Meanwhile, Trafalgar Group, a Republican polling company, conducted a survey between November 1 and 3 and concluded that the race was tied between the two candidates.
