A new poll showing Republican Kari Lake trailing Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego by double-digits in Arizona’s Senate race is the latest red flag for the GOP in what was expected to be a toss-up election.
Arizona, a red-turned-purple state roughly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, is one of the closest battlegrounds in the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
But it’s also one of several swing-state Senate races where a Democratic candidate is pulling ahead of their Republican rival in the homestretch. Gallego, who represents a Phoenix-area Congressional district, is holding a comfortable polling and fundraising lead over Lake, who ran an unsuccessful race for governor two years ago.
They are running to replace independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat who changed her party affiliation in 2022 and decided in March not to seek re-election. Arizona was viewed as safely Republicans for much of the 2000s and 2010s. But shifts in Phoenix, Tucson and their suburbs toward Democrats have made the state more competitive both at the presidential level and downballot.
A Marist College poll released on Thursday showed Gallego up by 10 points among likely voters.
Congressman Ruben Gallego speaks during the Democratic National Convention on August 22, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. Kari Lake speaks during a rally in Glendale, Aizona on August 23, 2024. A new poll showing Gallego leading by 10 points in the race is the latest red flag for Republicans.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images; Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
The poll, which surveyed 1,264 likely voters from September 19 to September 24, showed 54 percent of respondents backing Gallego, while 44 percent saying they plan to vote for Lake in the Senate race.
That same poll showed Trump ahead by one point in the state, winning 50 percent support from respondents compared to Harris’ 49 percent.
Arizona’s is one of the more expensive Senate races of the 2024 cycle, with candidates raising a combined $45 million through July, according to campaign finance data.
Gallego holds a financial advantage in the race, having brought in nearly $32 million to Lake’s $10.2 million, according to data reported by the nonprofit OpenSecrets. Meanwhile, Gallego has spent $25 million, while Lake has dispersed $8.2 million throughout the campaign as of July 10.
Gallego still had $8.2 million in the bank, while Lake had just over $2 million, according to OpenSecrets.
In the second quarter of 2024, Gallego raised $10.4 million, his campaign said. Lake, meanwhile, raised less than half of that at $4.3 million, The Washington Examiner reported.
Democratic-aligned outside PACs have also spent more on the race than Republican-aligned PACs.
According to OpenSecrets data on outside spending, groups spent more than $16 million on ads supporting Gallego and $10 million on ads opposing Lake. Meanwhile, pro-Lake PACs spent about $476,059 in support of her candidacy and $7.3 million opposing Gallego.
Newsweek reached out to the Gallego and Lake campaigns for comment via email.
Immigration and abortion have been two prominent issues in the Senate race.
A border state, Arizona has found itself at the center of the national debate on border security. Republicans blamed an influx of migrant arrivals on the Biden administration’s approach to the border, though crossings have declined over the past few months after Biden issued an executive order curbing asylum claims.
Gallego has emphasized his support for legislation to increase border-patrol funding in an effort to repel attacks from Lake and other conservatives that Democrats are not doing enough to address immigration.
Lake, meanwhile, has sought to moderate her position on abortion, a key issue Gallego has emphasized. She previously supported an Arizona law that essentially banned abortion in the state as a “great law” but turned critical when the Arizona Supreme Court ruled in favor of the law in April.
Abortion rights proved to be a salient issue for Democrats in 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the case that for decades guaranteed reproductive rights across the country. They turned the issue back to the states, and several Republican-led states quickly moved to ban the procedure in most cases.
Democrats won key races across the country, pouring water on hopes of a “Red wave” fueled by President Joe Biden‘s unpopularity, by running on abortion in the midterms that November.
Arizona’s 2022 gubernatorial race was among the elections where Democrats outperformed expectations. Lake, a telegenic former TV anchor whose support for Trump and his false election fraud claims propelled her to the national spotlight, lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, then secretary of state. In May, Hobbs signed into law a bill repealing the state’s abortion ban.
Democrats are hoping abortion will similarly carry them across the finish line in November, and polls suggest reproductive rights—along with immigration and the economy—remain a key issue for Arizonans.
How Did Arizona Vote in Past Elections?
Four years ago, Biden eked out a victory in the state, winning 49.36 percent of the vote to Trump’s 49.06 percent.
Trump carried it by more than 3 points four years earlier, winning 48.1 percent of the vote to Hillary Clinton‘s 44.6 percent.
In 2018, Sinema — then a Democrat — defeated Republican Rep. Martha McSally by more than two points in the Senate race (50 percent to 47.6 percent). Senator Mark Kelly, also a Democrat, won in 2022 by nearly five points (51.4 percent to 46.5 percent).
Who Is Up in Recent Arizona Senate Polls?
FiveThirtyEight’s polling aggregate of the Arizona Senate race showed Gallego up by 6.8 percentage points as of Thursday.
A New York Times/Siena College poll, conducted among 713 likely voters from September 17 to September 21, showed Gallego up six points (48 percent to 43 percent).
A Redfield & Wilton Strategies/The Telegraph poll, conducted among 789 likely voters from September 16 to September 19, showed Gallego up five points (46 percent to 41 percent). Elsewhere, an Emerson College/The Hill poll showed Gallego up 6 points (48 percent to 42 percent).
Polls suggest Gallego is in a stronger position than Harris in the state.
FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate showed Trump up 0.9 points above Harris in recent polls.
Trump was up five points in the Times poll (48 percent to 43 percent) and one point in the Emerson poll (50 percent to 49 percent). The Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll showed the race tied, each earning 47 percent support.
