Kari Lake Supporters Turn on Confederate Flag-Waver During Election Protest

There was confrontation in Arizona on Friday after a man turned up at a rally of Kari Lake supporters with a Confederate flag and refused to leave.

Around 30 Lake backers gathered in Phoenix, outside the Arizona State Capitol, demanding a rerun of the state's gubernatorial election.

Lake, a Trump-endorsed Republican, lost the governor's race to Democrat Katie Hobbs, by 49.7 percent of the vote to 50.3 percent.

However, Lake has refused to concede in what she claims was a "botched" election, and has filed a number of lawsuits in a bid to overturn the result.

Her supporters organized a protest outside the state capitol at 9 a.m. MST, claiming "hundreds of patriot groups" would unite to "protest the uncertifiable results."

However, video from the scene, in a tweet by Ron Filipkowski, showed no more than 50 people turned up, including one man waving a large Confederate battle-standard.

This sparked anger from other rally participants, who accused the man of seeking to undermine their event and asked him to leave.

One man shouted: "It's white power b*******, get out of here!"

A woman told the man to "go and take your racist a** flag with you."

The Confederate flag-waver, who refused to leave insisting he was "part of the movement," said: "Demographics is destiny–there's a reason the border needs to be closed."

At one point, another man, carrying the U.S. and Arizona flags and a banner promoting Lake, went right up to the flag-waver and urged him to drop the Confederate banner.

He said: "Please, I'm begging you, please take off this flag."

The flag-waver replied: "No, I'm not going to be a second-class participant in this."

On Wednesday, Lake submitted a lawsuit demanding the release of Maricopa County election records, alleging people across Arizona "may not have been able to vote," with "instances of misprinted ballots, the commingling of counted and uncounted ballots, and long lines discouraging people from voting" cited as examples.

Lake's bid to overturn the Arizona gubernatorial result follows former President Donald Trump's refusal to accept the 2020 presidential election outcome, which he insisted was "rigged" in favor of Joe Biden.

Trump launched a number of unsuccessful legal challenges to reverse the result, with his fraud theories being widely dismissed by legal and electoral experts, including Republicans.

On January 6, 2021, hundreds of Trump supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol, in a vain attempt to prevent the election result being certified by Congress.

During the violence, one Trump supporter, Ashli Babbitt, was shot dead by law enforcement, while dozens of officers were injured by rioters. Brian Sicknick, a 42-year-old Iraq War veteran with the Capitol police, died of natural causes the following day, after protesters sprayed a chemical irritant into his eyes and face.

Newsweek has contacted Kari Lake for comment.