Kari Lake Gets Good News in Arizona Senate Race

Controversial Senate candidate Kari Lake has closed a polling gap in Arizona, where she previously trailed by 13 points to progressive Democrat Ruben Gallego.

The latest poll by Remington Research Group, conducted for conservative news site The Daily Wire, showed that Lake and Gallego are neck-and-neck on 47 per cent each ahead of November’s election.

This new poll, Remington’s first for the 2024 Arizona Senate Race, suggests a remarkable turnaround for Lake, who has trailed Gallego in every state poll since February, including one in May where she was 13 points adrift. Newsweek has contacted Kari Lake and Ruben Gallego for comment.

The new poll, which surveyed 638 likely voters in Arizona between June 29 and July 1, was backed by a partisan Republican sponsor, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, but Remington is a reputable pollster, with national polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight ranking it 28th on its list of 277 polling firms for its historical track record and transparent methodology, giving it a rating of 2.6 stars out of three.

Although she has consistently trailed in the polls, Lake’s campaign hopes have been recently reignited as she began to close Gallego’s six-month lead; he led by only one point in a June poll conducted by North Star Opinion Research.

Lake shot to national prominence as a figure in former president Donald Trump‘s MAGA movement after stepping down as a news anchor to run for Arizona governor in 2021. She ran a campaign focused on securing the U.S.-Mexico border, protecting gun rights, and protesting COVID-19 lockdowns, “cancel culture” and “woke” school curriculums.

She lost the election to Katie Hobbs by just over 17,000 votes, but refused to concede because she believed the election was unfair.

Lake’s 2022 loss has continued to follow her into her 2024 Senate campaign. This year she has seen multiple legal setbacks, including in March, admitting that she defamed a fellow Republican by accusing him of a plot to rig the 2022 gubernatorial election, and in June losing her sixth appeal contesting the results of that same election.

In January, Lake’s Senate campaign was revealed to be divisive among Arizona Republicans, when the state’s party chair resigned after an audio recording surfaced in which he purportedly offered Lake money in exchange for her staying out of politics for two years.

Gallego represents a Phoenix-area Congressional district. Prior to politics he served in the U.S. Marines during the invasion of Iraq. He is of Latino descent, and was born and raised in Illinois, and studied at Harvard University.

He launched his Senate campaign in January 2024 after incumbent Kyrsten Sinema left the Democratic party to become an independent the month prior.

Sinema was a controversial figure amongst Democrats during Joe Biden‘s term, offering up a thumbs-down vote along with a curtsy that went viral on YouTube on a federal minimum wage increase to $15, saying she will not support a $3.5 trillion reconciliation package, and refusing to support drug pricing reforms.

In March, Sinema announced she was not standing for Senate, lamenting the partisanship that has overtaken Washington, D.C., saying it has provoked Americans “to retreat farther to their partisan corners.” Before stepping down she trailed Gallego in polls and fundraising.

The resulting two-horse race between Lake and Gallego will be key in November’s elections, where the Democrats are seeking to defend their razor-thin 50-49 majority in the Senate, as well as the White House.

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