Last Updated on July 18, 2022
Uni-party Republican Beau Lane is running to be Arizona’s next Secretary of State, with the backing of the GOP establishment. He also has deep ties to the Democrat Party and the anti-election integrity movement, staunchly opposing legislation to help secure Arizona’s elections and even donating money to a Democrat Congressman who twice voted to impeach President Trump, before turning federal authorities loose on American citizens for questioning the 2020 election.
Well-defined battle lines have been drawn in the GOP’s nominating race for Arizona’s Secretary of State, with Trump-endorsed election integrity advocate, State Rep. Mark Finchem, representing the America First wing of the Republican Party. Though the primary race consists of four candidates in all, it has largely whittled down to a contest between two of them, with Beau Lane, a business executive with close uni-party ties, standing opposite of Finchem and boasting the support of the GOP establishment, while claiming to be a political outsider.
Arizona’s Secretary of State is tasked with presiding over the state’s elections, and the winner of this year’s contest will oversee the state’s voting in the 2024 presidential race. The statewide office is currently occupied by far-left Democrat Katie Hobbs, who is seeking re-election.
While Mark Finchem has made election integrity a key point of his campaign platform and has acted as a driving force behind the Arizona Audit and election integrity legislation in the state’s House of Representatives, Beau Lane has directly opposed the same agenda and has been endorsed by infamous Arizona Audit opponent, Governor Doug Ducey.
Lane has been a longtime member of the Democrat-run Greater Phoenix Leadership Council, “an organization of leading CEOs” that staunchly and publicly oppose election integrity activism in Arizona. Reportedly, it was the powerful associates of that group that encouraged Lane to run for Secretary of State, and he obliged them.
In a 2021 op-ed published in The Arizona Republic, the group’s Democrat leader, Neil Giuliano, declared that the Greater Phoenix Leadership Council would no longer associate with Republicans and those who “spread lies” regarding the “fair” 2020 election. Later in 2021, Lane signed a letter with Giuliano and other members of the council urging state legislators to reject election integrity legislation.
Furthermore, in a radio interview that he posted to his own campaign Twitter account, Beau Lane lauded Arizona’s fraud-ridden vote-by-mail system, calling it “one of the most refined in the country” and praised a judge for siding with Democrat Secretary of State Katie Hobbs against a Republican-led lawsuit aiming to stop ballot harvesting.
Lane calls himself a political outsider because he’s never held public office, but even The Arizona Republic, which appears to be heavily promoting Lane as an alternative to Trump-backed Mark Finchem, makes mention of his deep insider ties to Arizona politics.
“While he claims the ‘outsider’ label because he has never run for office, he’s got insider cred given the support he’s garnered from establishment politicians and major business leaders,” The Republic reported in a recent article profiling Lane’s candidacy.
Further cementing his “insider” status, Lane has been a longtime political donor, backing John McCain and Mitt Romney but never giving a dime to President Trump in either of his Presidential races. Beau Lane has also funded Democrat candidates for office, including Arizona’s 9th District US Rep. Greg Stanton, who twice voted to impeach 45th President Trump. In the process, he donated through ActBlue, the far-left fundraising outfit linked to George Soros and used by Black Lives Matter and the DNC alike. In addition to his Trump impeachment votes, Stanton voted to turn federal authorities loose on election integrity advocates, supporting the formation of Nancy Pelosi’s January 6th Committee.
While Arizona’s GOP primary will officially be held on August 2nd, early voting has already started. According to a recent poll, Trump-backed candidate Mark Finchem leads the pack, though a large swath of voters still report that they are undecided.
