PINAL COUNTY, Ariz. (KGUN) — Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s seat is opening up this fall.
Before a hotly-contested election this fall comes this month’s primary to determine which Republican candidate will take on Democrat Ruben Gallego.
Instead of running for Pinal County Sheriff for a third time, Mark Lamb is now gunning for the U.S. Senate.
“I’m not a politician,” he said on the campaign trail. “I’m just a patriot who lives God, family, freedom and the Constitution.”
He recently sat down with KGUN 9’s Ryan Fish.
“We need more common sense, real people in D.C.,” he said. “Washington, especially the Senate, needs more cowboy hats and belt buckles.”
Lamb also says he’s running to fix issues he “cannot fix on a county level,” like the national economy.
“I think the quickest fix is to get our energy independence back, start to stabilize the economy, less restrictions on business, less government overreach,” he said.
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Lamb wants more government action on the border.
“These are not talking points for me,” he said of the border crisis. “We [at the Sheriff’s Office] do it on a daily basis. We catch the fentanyl from coming into your loved ones’ hands. We stop these people from being trafficked by the cartels.”
Lamb claims that boots-on-the-ground experience sets him apart from his primary opponent, Kari Lake, a former phoenix tv anchor. He says the biggest difference between them as candidates is “experience.”
“There’s no more runway,” he said. “There’s no more time. You gotta have real experience in the border… Managing a large agency, a large government budget.”
Some could say Lamb is ‘Made-for-TV’ too. He has frequently appeared on crime-fighting reality shows.
He bills himself as a “proven conservative fighter.”
“Through COVID, we stood against the lockdowns, we stood against the mask mandates, we stood against the vaccine mandates,” he recalled.
Lamb says the country now needs him to stand up to Democrats in DC.
“It’s just not in my nature to stand on the corner and watch the building burn to the ground and not do anything about it,” he said.
He’s going from chasing crime to chasing votes, and what he hopes will be an upset victory in the primary.
More from the Republic primary race for U.S. Senate:
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Ryan Fish is an anchor and reporter for KGUN 9 and comes to the Sonoran Desert from California’s Central Coast after working as a reporter, sports anchor and weather forecaster in Santa Barbara. Ryan grew up in the Chicago suburbs, frequently visiting family in Tucson. Share your story ideas and important issues with Ryan by emailing ryan.fish@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.
