**The twice-defeated Arizona candidate has long flirted with politics in her home state.**

**By** 

**Vaughn Hillyard**

 **and** 

**Soorin Kim**

**WASHINGTON — Kari Lake, the State Department official who oversaw last year’s gutting of Voice of America after losing two separate bids for political office in Arizona, recently purchased a $60,000 condo in her home community of eastern Iowa.**

**The property purchase comes after years of Lake flirting with GOP politics in the state and ahead of the potential retirement of longtime Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley.**

**Official property records from Scott County, Iowa, show the November sale of the two-bedroom condominium in a brick apartment building in Davenport to a family trust controlled by Lake. She graduated from a high school near the property before attending the University of Iowa.**

**Grassley has not closed the door on running for re-election in 2028, but would be 95 years old on Election Day if he pursued another term.**

***In early 2025, as Iowa’s other Republican senator, Joni Ernst, faced criticism from Trump loyalists over her support for the incoming president’s agenda, Lake planned a political visit to the greater Des Moines area. A source familiar with her political interests said at the time that Lake had not ruled out a primary challenge to Ernst, who later announced she would retire rather than seek re-election.*** 

***Lake also held multiple political rallies in 2023 in Iowa, promoting unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud.***  

*After a career as a local broadcast anchor in Phoenix, Lake ran for Arizona governor in 2022, touting herself on the campaign trail as “Trump in Heels.” She lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, but continues to falsely claim the election was stolen from her.* 

*Two years later, Democrat Ruben Gallego defeated Lake by 2.4 percentage points in the race for Arizona’s open U.S. Senate seat despite Trump winning the state by 5.5 points on the same ballot. As recently as last weekend, Lake continued her persistent attacks on Gallego, posting on X in disbelief that the election results of her Senate race were accurate.* 

*In 2024, Lake settled a defamation suit with a Republican election official in Maricopa County after repeatedly accusing him of causing her gubernatorial defeat. Before the settlement, she had declined to contest her liability.*

*Dozens of vote tabulation machines malfunctioned during Arizona’s 2022 election, rejecting ballots. Some conservatives baselessly cited the failures as evidence of widespread fraud. The root cause was ultimately traced to changes in ballot paper*

Kari Lake buys Iowa condo as speculation swirls about her future