How one of MAGA’s brightest stars went from unstoppable to long shot

A large chunk of the state’s more traditional Republicans continue to feel alienated by Lake’s denigration of the late Sen. John McCain and his supporters during her 2022 campaign. That’s allowed Gallego to court Republicans like Julie Spilsbury, a city councilor in Mesa who’s backing the Democratic congressman even as she acknowledges that he’s been “pretty far left” throughout his career.

“I’ve seen a willingness to moderate,” Spilsbury told a small group of reporters at a “Republicans for Harris” event in Mesa last week, adding that both Harris and Gallego are “big-tent Democrats that say ‘we want you,’ and the Republicans are saying, ‘get the hell out of our party.'”

The situation is all the more remarkable given that political headwinds in Arizona — a state disproportionally impacted by both inflation and the border crisis — have been blowing rightward. While Trump and Harris remain locked in a dead-heat race for the state’s 11 Electoral College votes, Gallego boasts a polling lead over Lake that’s outside the state’s margin of error.

Lake’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this story. But at a press conference last week, she told reporters that she had “zero faith in the public polling” of her race and insisted that her own internal polls showed a tight race. “These polls are meant to take the oxygen out of our movement,” Lake argued. “They’re meant to keep donors away.”

‘She’s lost credibility’

Lake remains a skilled politician, a fact that was apparent during last week’s debate, where she smoothly lobbed attacks at Gallego as he occasionally tripped over his words. But the congressman’s supporters remained relaxed throughout the event, breaking into laughter when Lake professed a desire to put “country over party” or erroneously used the term “UVF” to refer to in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments.

“She was certainly a juggernaut when she ran for governor,” said Kirk Adams, a Republican who was former Gov. Doug Ducey’s chief of staff and once served as the speaker of the Arizona House. But today, Adams argued, she’s primarily defined by her status as a political loser. “If you were to ask people, ‘What do you know about Kari Lake?’ There are likely two things that they will tell you: She was a news anchor for a very long time, and she thinks that the 2022 election was stolen from her.”

It’s a facet of Lake’s candidacy that rankles even her supporters. Maryjane Carsten, a 71-year-old Republican retiree who lives in Oracle, said she felt like she was “voting for the best of the worst” in the Senate race.

“I like that she’s a conservative,” Carsten said as she made her way into Sen. JD Vance’s rally in Tucson on Wednesday. “But she just would not let that election go. She just won’t let stuff go. She needs to.”

Compounding that issue is Lake’s unclear positioning on abortion. Like many Republicans, she’s pledged not to support a national abortion ban, though she told reporters last week that she voted against a ballot measure to expand abortion rights in Arizona. She’s also expressed conflicting views on a near-total abortion ban that almost took effect in the state this year, saying that she opposed it only to bemoan later that it wasn’t being enforced.

“She’s lost credibility with a giant portion of the electorate, which, at the beginning of that game, could have been hers,” said Chuck Coughlin, a former GOP political strategist in Arizona who’s backing Gallego.

Of course, Trump has also refused to concede his last election and has offered conflicting views on abortion. Yet while a Lake win at this point would be an upset, that’s simply not the case for Trump. The difference between the two candidates may simply come down to the fact that the former president is, well, a former president who has a mostly positive economic record to run on.

“The Donald Trump playbook only really works for one person, and that’s Donald Trump,” said Barrett Marson, a Republican political strategist in Arizona.

Mike Noble, the founder and CEO of the Arizona polling firm Noble Predictive Insights, said that his polling had found that voters, including Republicans, simply viewed Lake differently. “She does have all the baggage Trump has, but she doesn’t have any of the positives, the policy wins and things like that,” Noble said.

The election is just over three weeks away, and Lake is now hobbling toward the finish line. She trails Gallego in public polling by an average of 7 percentage points, and she’s consistently struggled to keep up with the Democratic congressman’s fundraising machine. Last week, Gallego’s campaign said that he had raised over $50 million since he entered the race, with $21.7 million of that sum coming in since July. Lake’s campaign has declined to release her latest fundraising figures, suggesting they’re lackluster.

Deep-pocketed national GOP groups have also largely avoided the race, even as they’ve plunged tens of millions of dollars into more promising targets elsewhere. Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC tied to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, hasn’t spent a dime in Arizona this year.

“Normally, these things are more competitive,” said Noble. “This Senate race should be more competitive.”