Republican Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb announced Tuesday he’s operating for U.S. Senate seat at present held by Kyrsten Sinema. 

Lamb is the primary Republican to enter
the 2024 contest, however is unlikely to be the final. Sinema, who received in
2018 as a Democrat however final yr left that celebration to turn into an
impartial, has already drawn a problem from U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego,
a Phoenix Democrat. 

Lamb was first elected sheriff of
Pinal County in 2016, and since then has been a fixture in Arizona
politics and has grown a nationwide profile, commonly showing on
mainstream and far-right fringe media retailers. It’s his appearances and
alliances with these fringe retailers that would sow hassle for Lamb on
the marketing campaign path. 

Gallego has already begun noting his connections to the far proper, and issued a press release Tuesday with Capitol Hill Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell condemning Lamb’s “perpetuation of the ‘Large Lie.’” 

Lamb has partnered with teams like True the Vote which have pursued far-flung conspiracy theories of election fraud and lied to regulation enforcement.

Lamb and the political fringe 

Whereas Lamb has been making a reputation for himself showing on mainstream conservative media retailers like Fox Information, the place he opines about immigration points, he has additionally been interesting to a special viewers as properly. 

Lamb has railed towards vaccines and is a part of a bunch often called “constitutional sheriffs.”  

The motion, led by former Arizona Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack, is a sovereign-citizen group
during which its chief, Mack, believes that the “New World Order” is
aiming to remove weapons — and that sheriffs are on the frontlines of
stopping “election fraud.” 

Lamb has claimed he’s not a “constitutional sheriff,” although he seems as a signatory with the group in a few of their materials, and Mack himself has referred to as Lamb a constitutional sheriff. 

The group takes a positive view of
armed citizen militias, together with militias which can be lively alongside
Arizona’s border with Mexico. Such teams are largely anti-government,
and a few of their leaders have been in attendance on the Jan. 6 riot. 

Among the militias are also additionally
steeped within the QAnon conspiracy principle {that a} “cabal” is actively
collaborating in intercourse trafficking as a way to assist the “elites,” typically to
assist the Democratic celebration and hinder the Republicans. There isn’t a proof
to those claims. 

Lamb has signaled to those conspiracy theorists, signing a copy of a book for a QAnon influencer with the QAnon slogan “WWG1WGA.”

Different QAnon proponents have claimed to have been working with Lamb,
like Melody Jennings, often known as “TrumperMel,” the girl behind an
effort to arrange armed observers to watch drop packing containers in Arizona
in the course of the 2022 election. The courts in the end blocked Jennings and her
group, which included members of the extremist Oath Keepers, from staking out the drop packing containers. 

Lamb has additionally appeared on a lot of
QAnon-related reveals, as properly, together with one which with a historical past of
antisemitic feedback. TruNews has printed antisemitic rhetoric on its
web site, together with a chunk during which founder Rick Wiles spent an hour and a
half saying that “seditious Jews” have been “orchestrating” to question Trump and calling the Jewish folks “tyrants.” 

Wiles has additionally claimed that the anti-Christ will likely be a “gay Jew.” He was interviewed by Lauren Witzke and, throughout an episode during which Lamb additionally appeared, Wiles mentioned that Jews “squash” and “crush” folks. Witzke is a conspiracy theorist and has echoed white nationalist beliefs herself. Throughout an look on the white nationalist podcast No White Guilt, Witzke echoed the racist “nice substitute” principle. 

Lamb supported Witzke when she ran for U.S. Senate in Delaware. 

Lamb has additionally echoed the “nice substitute” principle whereas on a QAnon speak present, saying that unlawful immigration is a “profit to their agenda.”  

The racist ideology, widespread amongst
white supremacists, holds that white Individuals are being changed by
immigrants. It has been seized upon by extremist teams such because the American Id Motion and Era Id.

It has additionally stoked violence,
together with Anders Behring Breivik’s murderous rampage in 2011 at a
Norwegian youth summer season camp and the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue capturing
in Pittsburgh, the deadliest assault towards the Jewish group in
United States historical past. Simply earlier than it came about, the killer took to
right-wing social media web site Gab to say he believed that immigrants have been
being introduced in to exchange and “kill our folks.” 

The subsequent yr in New Zealand, 51
folks can be killed and 40 injured however not earlier than the shooter would
put up a 74-page manifesto titled “The Nice Substitute.” 

Once more in 2019, in El Paso, Texas, a
shooter who killed 23 in a Walmart cited the “nice substitute” in his
manifesto, saying the murders have been a response to the “hispanic invasion
of Texas.” 

Whereas Lamb testified to Congress
earlier this yr mentioned he noticed “zero proof” of widespread voter fraud,
he has continued to ally and work with teams which have continued to
pursue unfounded allegations of fraud within the 2020 and 2022 elections. 

A type of teams is True the Vote, the group that has been behind debunked claims behind the discredited movie “2000 Mules.” 

Lamb partnered with TTV on an
election hotline that despatched voters to TTV for election points as an alternative of
to election officers. He wrote the “Sheriff’s Toolkit” for TTV and he attended an invite-only occasion in Pinal County by TTV dubbed “The Pit.” 

The occasion, which hosted QAnon
influencers and different conspiracy theorists, pushed unfounded fraud
allegations and allowed for a lot of within the election fraud sphere to rub
noses with the likes of Lamb and different excessive profile folks in Arizona.
In Could of final yr,
Lamb additionally mentioned he had “little doubt” that there was fraud within the 2020
election, later mentioning “2000 Mules” previous to its launch. 

Lamb is prone to not be the one GOP contender within the Senate race. 

Duncan Colton, one in every of Kari Lake’s senior advisors, informed the Washington Put up that Lake may be eyeing a Senate run herself. Lamb endorsed Lake in her 2022 bid for governor.