Senate candidate Kari Lake indistinctly linked illegal immigration to the climbing cost of housing in Arizona at a Tuesday morning campaign event that veered into higher-profile policy issues, including Lake’s shifting rhetoric on abortion.Lake, the Republican Senate primary front-runner, seemed to downplay Arizona’s recently upheld strict 1864 abortion ban by telling people “you can go three hours that way, three hours that way, and you’re going to be able to have an abortion.”Lake was scheduled to discuss housing affordability alongside Jason Mitchell, a real estate broker.In recent years, the already-rising cost of housing in Arizona has sharply increased. In 2022, the state had the 18th highest “housing wage” needed to rent a two-bedroom apartment. In 2023, it jumped to number 12, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s latest “Out of Reach” report.Lake gestured broadly to the issue of illegal immigration, the linchpin of her campaign, to explain that trend.Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide“We don’t have enough housing for the people who are here. Now we’ve got 9 to 12 million. That adds additional stress to the system,” Lake said to dozens of people at Mitchell’s office in Scottsdale, referring to the estimated number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.Immigration is among the factors that can influence the price of housing in U.S. cities. Economists disagree about why housing is so expensive, but many view shortages in the housing supply or corporate ownership of the housing stock as the greatest contributing factors.In an interview before the event, Mitchell said he doesn’t believe that illegal immigration is driving up the cost of buying a home. He said it’s plausible that immigrants are driving up the cost of renting because they, like other occupants, eat into the rental supply.“The less supply of something there is, the more expensive it costs. That’s just basic economics,” Mitchell said.Onstage, Lake and Mitchell bemoaned crime committed by …
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