PHOENIX — Kari Lake is lagging behind former President Donald Trump so much in Arizona that Republicans fear the Senate race for a rare open seat is already lost.
Once touted by Trump as the future of MAGA and “absolute star,” Lake has found herself in a unique predicament: the GOP base in battleground Arizona is largely behind Trump for president, but Republicans are not quite sold on her.
Even some of Lake’s supporters said she’s unlikable but will vote for her anyway in November.
“I hate her, but I’ll vote for her,” Michael Alpern, 69, a retired radiologist in Scottsdale, told the Washington Examiner.
“As much as I dislike Kari Lake, I did vote for her for governor, and I will vote for her for Senate, with much less enthusiasm than when I voted for governor because I’m really not happy with her election denial stance,” he added.
As early voting began Wednesday, polling averages show Lake running 6 points behind Trump, with about 43% support statewide in her race for Senate, compared to Trump, who had 49% in his race for the White House. The gap between them is wider than in other swing states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, where Republicans are also trying to pick up Senate seats.
“Kari Lake could arguably be one of the worst polling candidates we’ve seen this cycle,” said Mike Noble, an Arizona-based pollster.
Lake, a former news anchor, was the GOP nominee for governor in 2022 and championed a brash style popularized by the former president. She lost the race but didn’t concede, citing election fraud, which has divided the Republican Party.
Lake now faces Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) for a chance to flip a critical seat. Gallego has managed to siphon away Republican and independent voters in a formula outgoing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) utilized to win her previous race in 2018.
In the last 12 polls of likely voters, Gallego has had a double-digit lead over Lake six times. However, an average of polling between Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump shows a much tighter race, underscoring a persistent divide between both Trump and Lake’s level of support in the Grand Canyon State.
“Her net favorability is negative double digits while Ruben’s are positive,” Noble said. “A lot of people reference her as the Donald Trump of Arizona. There’s some truth to that, but she has all the negatives that Trump has, but none of his positives, and we see it all in the numbers.”
“Trump-first Republicans, people that are loyal to Trump, not the party, of course, he has 100% of those, but she has 90%,” he added.
Republicans wanted to showcase ‘candidate quality’
Republicans are favored to win back the Senate this cycle, with Democrats playing defense in far more battleground states than the GOP. Republicans have a shot at winning Senate seats in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Montana, not to mention the expected pickup in West Virginia, where Democratic-turned-independent Sen. Joe Manchin is retiring.
Senate Republicans worked to box out weak GOP candidates in the 2024 primaries following a lackluster 2022 performance that ended with their minority shrinking in the upper chamber. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) blamed the losses on “candidate quality” of Trump backing flawed nominees, such as Herschel Walker in Georgia.
In 2022, Lake ran for governor as a hard-charging Republican outsider who was quick to turn on the GOP establishment, bragging that she “drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine,” in reference to the late GOP Sen. John McCain.
As she eyed the Senate run two years later, Trump was quick to back her early in October 2023.
“She is a fighter. She’s strong, and she’s good. She’s got a great heart, by the way,” Trump said in his endorsement video.
To have a united front, the establishment fell in line with the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm endorsing Lake’s candidacy in February.
Warning signs about her candidacy persisted, however. In August, she won her primary with about 55% of the vote despite running as the presumptive Republican nominee all year. Underfunded Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb got 39% of the vote.
Some say the GOP made a mistake by embracing Lake and holding on to the past of stolen election claims.
“Unfortunately, we aren’t able to learn the lessons of last cycle because you have the top of the ticket and the state party leaders pushing the notion that the election was stolen,” said a Republican consultant based in Arizona, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “So, there wasn’t the reflection that was needed to move on.
“There’s absolutely no reason why we should lose this race, but Lake is a toxic poison,” the consultant added.
Lake has worked to make amends with the McCain wing of the party and reached out to centrists and independents.
She insisted the public polls are wrong and the race is winnable.
“These polls are meant to take the oxygen out of our movement. They’re meant to take donors away and keep donors on the sideline and to bolster a false narrative that Ruben Gallego is in the lead,” Lake said in response to a question from the Washington Examiner on Monday. “Gallego — he’s not in the lead. My polling shows that we’re either up or in a dead heat with him.”
Lake maintains her internal polling, which shows she is getting over 90% of the Republican vote.
“I’m getting 91-92%, so it just doesn’t match the facts,” she said.
Why the MAGA ‘star’ isn’t rising
Republican operatives and voters point to a variety of reasons for Lake lagging behind Trump, who has called her an “absolute star.”
Some said there’s a lack of trust after Lake released a secret March 2023 audio recording she made of her conversation with Jeff DeWit, then-state party chairman, in which he offered Lake what she viewed as a bribe to keep her out of the Senate race. The recording ultimately forced DeWit to resign, shaking up the state’s Republican Party in the battleground state. DeWit was a former state treasurer and Trump administration official and also served as chief operating officer of both Trump’s 2016 and 2020 elections.
“She took out Jeff DeWit, and for some conservatives — I mean, I just watched the Godfather last night — he was a made guy, and it was an unsanctioned hit on him,” said Barrett Marson, an Arizona GOP political consultant. “He was tight with Trump people, and all of a sudden, she took him out for no reason.”
“Some people on the right did not appreciate that, and she’s lost some support,” he said.
In polling conducted by RMG Research for the Napolitan Institute in early October, Gallego not only led Lake by 10 points but also captured 13% of Republicans and 27% of those who consider themselves lean Republicans. The results were similar in an AARP poll, where he led by seven points and with 11% of Republicans and 55% of Independents.
Chuck Coughlin, a longtime Republican consultant and pollster in the state, said it’s critical for a candidate, specifically in Arizona, to hold on to their base. Coughlin’s firm conducted a recent poll that showed Gallego had convinced 12% of likely GOP voters to back his candidacy and 94.2% of the Democratic base.
“Harris is getting over 90% of her base, and so is Ruben, but Lake and Trump both are not — there’s bleeding going on there,” Coughlin explained.
The National Republican Senate Committee said Lake can rally the Republican Party behind her.
“Kari Lake is working hard to unite the Republican Party and has a clear path to victory,” said Mike Berg, the communications director for the NRSC. “Ruben Gallego called ‘Trump voters dumb’ and the ‘worst people in the world,’ so I’m skeptical of polls showing him with a lot of crossover appeal.”
Gender stereotypes at play
Christine Jones, an attorney and a former Republican candidate who ran for Arizona governor in 2014 and Congress in 2016, said the election denial message has proven to not be a winning one with Arizona voters.
“There’s a feeling of exhaustion around the focus of prior elections, and even when she tries to distance herself from that conversation, she’s generally identified with the election integrity movement, and it’s a very difficult identity to shake,” Jones said.
Jones admits Trump can get away with saying the election was stolen without turning off these same voters. Some of it, she believes, has to do with the fact that Lake is a woman.
“Particularly for women, it’s a very difficult personality to put on because, like it or not — people do not like women candidates to be aggressive and gruff and angry and condescending and all of the things that male candidates on both sides of the aisle get away with,” Jones explained. “It’s not because people are generally bad or sexist or look at the genders differently. Humans are genetically pre-wired to perceive women’s voices in one way and men’s voices in another way.
“As much as a Republican candidate wants to be Donald Trump and as much as some of the men get away with some of it, none of the women can get away with it, including Kari Lake,” Jones said.
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Mesa Councilwoman Julie Spilsbury, who is a Republican voting for Gallego, detailed a discussion she had with a relative recently about Lake.
“I said oh, she’s just a female Trump’ and she goes, ‘oh don’t say that. I love Trump, but I hate Kari Lake,’ Spilsbury explained. “I was just a bit shocked by that because you would think if you love Trump, you would love Kari Lake.”