PHOENIX — Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, the only Republican running for Senate in Arizona, has worked to raise his profile with the GOP base.
Lamb has been focusing on immigration, bolstering border security, and criticizing COVID-19 vaccine requirements over the last couple of years.
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After several disappointing statewide cycles for Republicans in the Grand Canyon State, the 50-year-old sheriff of a county located between Phoenix and Tucson is pitching himself as a candidate who can bring together his fractured party. He also says he can attract critical independent voters who have swung elections in Arizona in recent years.
“The people of Arizona are hungry for somebody that’s authentic and wants to represent the people of Arizona, so that’s what I’m focused on,” Lamb said in an interview with the Washington Examiner.
Lamb, who has been in office since 2017, announced his candidacy at the beginning of April, and so far, the field appears to be frozen after firebrand Kari Lake has teased a run for the seat held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ). The contest is poised to become a three-way battle after Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) announced his run for Sinema’s seat at the beginning of this year. Sinema has not said if she will run, but she has signaled that she is preparing a campaign.
While many insiders expect Lake to be the favorite for the Republican nomination if she decides to run, her narrow loss in the 2022 gubernatorial race leaves some uncertainty about her electability, which could potentially leave an opening for a candidate like Lamb.
“I can’t control what other people do or say, but I can control what I do and the effort that I put in,” Lamb said. “What I’m really trying to do is focus on the things we need to do, which includes fundraising, building name recognition, and really just showing the people of Arizona that I’m the proven conservative fighter.”
Since Sinema’s victory in 2018, Arizona has transformed from a solid red state to one of the country’s most competitive battlegrounds. In 2020, President Joe Biden’s victory in the state over former President Donald Trump helped him secure the White House. In December 2020, Arizona had two Democratic senators for the first time since 1952 after Mark Kelly was sworn in. In 2022, Lake and three other Republicans running for major statewide offices lost. It was the first time Democrats held all major statewide positions since 1950.
“It’s been surprising and hard to watch. It’s part of the reason I’m in the race. I just couldn’t stand by and watch,” Lamb said. “I don’t want to be the guy that just complains about it. I want to do something about it.”
Lamb’s campaign is expected to focus on cracking down on illegal immigration and drug smuggling at the border. In a video announcing his candidacy, he pledged to take on drug cartels and called for the U.S. military to “wipe them out just like we did to ISIS.”
As the top law enforcement officer in Arizona’s third-most populous county, he said he encounters human and drug traffickers firsthand and continues to be critical of how the Biden administration has handled the southern border.
“Fortunately and unfortunately at the same time, border issues have become the No. 1 issue for most Arizonans, and I think for most Americans — and that honestly is right in my wheelhouse of things to be able to deal with and understand,” Lamb said. “I think with some of the main issues we’re dealing with, like border security and rising crime, there’s a lot of those things that I’m very well suited for, probably better than any candidate.”
The sheriff, who has been an outspoken Trump supporter in the past, said he has decided not to endorse any candidate in the Republican presidential primary. The former president lost Arizona in 2020, and Trump-aligned Senate candidate Blake Masters lost his race last year by 5 percentage points.
“I’ve never gotten involved in endorsements in primaries. I feel like those are races that everybody needs to run for themselves,” Lamb said, sidestepping a question about whether he plans to endorse Trump’s third run for the White House.
Lamb has a complicated history regarding the election controversies that have roiled the GOP in recent years. He previously supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, defended those involved at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and said he would investigate voter fraud in the 2022 midterm elections.
After Arizona Republicans who embraced Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him all lost their general election races, Lamb appeared to distance himself from the theory.
“I don’t know. I haven’t looked into them enough,” Lamb said, sidestepping questions about whether the last two elections were fair. “I don’t know what evidence they have in Maricopa County. I think we did the best we could in Pinal County to come up with correct results.”
At a congressional hearing earlier this year, Lamb said he had seen “zero evidence” of fraud that could have affected the outcome in 2020.
Lamb appears to be trying to court the party’s more establishment wing after recently meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and officials at the National Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington.
McConnell was critical of Trump-aligned candidates and has been actively working to avoid repeating the mistakes of the 2022 midterm election cycle when a favorable political environment did not transfer at the ballot box. Republicans lost a seat, resulting in a 51-49 Senate Democratic majority. A group aligned with McConnell stopped providing support to Masters in the race, who ultimately lost to Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly.
“I was just in Washington, D.C., the other day, talking to a few more senators, the NRSC — again, talking about where we’re at with our race,” Lamb said. “We want to hopefully get the support of not just the Republicans and independents in the state of Arizona, but we’d love to have the support from a national level so that we can take the state back.”
McConnell recently indicated Republicans are still assessing the Arizona Senate race and voiced some hesitation about whether the GOP wants to invest resources. In an interview with CNN in May, he emphasized that Republicans will likely wait to see what happens in the primary before they decide to engage.
Ahead of what could be a potentially contentious primary, Lamb is seen favorably by many Arizona Republicans, although some operatives in the state are unsure if he’ll be able to come out on top in such a high-profile race.
“I think he’s a great guy, he’s done a great job as sheriff, and I do think he’s a good candidate for something,” said Daniel Scarpinato, a Republican strategist who previously served as former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey‘s chief of staff.
“For this race, it’s tough to see a path for Mark Lamb. I think he’d really have to be a kind of breakout sensation and have something that catapults him to be able to be more known and get through the primary,” Scarpinato said.
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Late last year, Lamb suffered a personal tragedy when his 22-year-old son, the son’s fiancee, and their 1-year-old daughter were killed in a car crash. Lamb said his son Cooper had struggled with drugs and had spent time in jail but was sober at the time of the accident. Lamb said their deaths were a turning point in his decision to seek higher office.
“When you lose somebody like that, it’s always with you,” Lamb said. “It does play a major role in why we decided to do this, and it probably was the final thing that made my wife and I feel like this is definitely something we felt compelled to do.”
