Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), who is running for Senate in Arizona, has a large funding and polling advantage over his opponent, Republican Kari Lake.
Gallego has a 3-to-1 fundraising advantage over Lake and is polling double digits ahead of her. Both are running to replace Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), who decided not to seek reelection.
A new poll from Marist College shows Gallego up by 10 points among likely Arizona voters. The poll found that 54% of respondents said they supported Gallego, and 44% said they supported Lake. In the presidential race, former President Donald Trump is polling 1 point ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris.
“While the mainstream media continues to peddle Democrat-funded, biased polls, we’ve aggregated data from over 20 independent polls that show a true race within just 2 points. This is well within the margin of error, exposing their so-called ‘polling’ as nothing more than a calculated attempt to suppress our voters,” the Lake spokesperson told Newsweek regarding the poor poll performance.
While up in the polls, Gallego has a wide fundraising edge over Lake. Gallego currently has $8.2 million for his campaign, while Lake has just over $2 million, according to OpenSecrets.
In the second quarter of 2024, Gallego raised $10.4 million, and Lake raised a little under half of that, at $4.3 million.
Gallego and Lake will debate on Oct. 9.
Lake ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor in Arizona, losing to now-Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ). She refused to concede the election and recently asked the Arizona Supreme Court to overturn the results of the 2022 gubernatorial election in her favor.
Republicans once strongly held both of Arizona’s Senate seats for decades, but the GOP has not won a Senate race there since 2018. President Joe Biden won the state in 2020, which was the first time Arizona voters sent a Democrat to the White House since former President Bill Clinton in 1996.
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While Arizona was once a solidly Republican-leaning state, it has moved to the left since the 2016 election, with a blue wave during the 2022 election that gave Arizona a Democratic governor, attorney general, and secretary of state, as well as Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ).
During the 2016 election, Maricopa County was the most populous county in the country that voted for Trump, but it flipped blue for Biden in 2020, as did the state. It is the population center of the state, with more than 60% of Arizonans living there.