Ex-Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to campaign for Trump-backed Kari Lake in Arizona

Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is scheduled Tuesday to campaign for Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for governor of Arizona, just days after she announced she was leaving the Democratic Party.

Lake’s campaign said Gabbard would introduce Lake at a GOP forum in Chandler.

The dramatic swing to the right comes after Gabbard, a former House member from Hawaii who ran for president as a Democrat in the 2020 election cycle, posted a video statement saying she could no longer remain a member of a party “now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.”

Gabbard has often been at odds with Democratic leaders, despite having endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 race after she dropped out. But she will now campaign for a Trump-endorsed candidate who has become a prominent election denier in Arizona.

NBC News has asked Gabbard for comment.

Lake repeatedly declined to say in an interview Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” whether she would accept the results of the election next month if she loses to Democrat Katie Hobbs. She had remarked earlier that midterm elections could be tainted by fraud.

Others speaking at Tuesday’s GOP forum include Senate candidate Blake Masters and Abe Hamadeh, who is running for attorney general. All three of the candidates scheduled to take the stage Tuesday have denied the results of the 2020 election.