Kari Lake Called Arizona’s Abortion Ban a ‘Great Law,’ but Now She Denounces It

In her 2022 race for governor, Ms. Lake delivered a strict anti-abortion message. Now running for Senate, she is retreating from that position.

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“I’m incredibly thrilled that we are going to have a great law that’s already on the books,” Kari Lake said of the Arizona abortion ban during a 2022 interview.

Kari Lake, the leading Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, was quick to denounce the state Supreme Court’s ruling upholding an 1864 law banning nearly all abortions in the state. The law is “out of step with Arizonans,” she said in a statement. She called on state lawmakers to “come up” with a “solution that Arizonans can support.”

But Ms. Lake, an ally of former President Donald J. Trump and a 2020 election denier, had voiced enthusiastic support for the law less than two years ago, when she was in the midst of a scorched-earth campaign for the Republican nomination for governor. Asked then what she thought of the ban, she said she was thrilled it existed and called a “great law.”

Asked for comment, the Lake campaign pointed to a post from Caroline Wren, a senior adviser to Ms. Lake, who insisted on Tuesday that Ms. Lake was not referring to the territorial-era law in the interview. But in that 2022 appearance, Ms. Lake cited the 1864 law’s number in the Arizona state code.

“I’m incredibly thrilled that we are going to have a great law that’s already on the books. I believe it’s ARS 13-3603,” she said in a 2022 interview on “The Conservative Circus With James T. Harris.” She made other remarks in support of the 1864 law during that campaign as well.

Ms. Lake’s retreat from the fervent anti-abortion rhetoric of her early 2022 campaign reflects the sharp changes in the politics of abortion in the nearly two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion. Her shift also signals grave concern from Republicans, both in Arizona and across the country, that the issue will leave them electorally vulnerable in the fall — particularly in crucial battleground states like Arizona.

Republicans have been searching for a position that will shield them from the electoral blowback they have seen since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

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