GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake, a former Phoenix-area broadcaster who ran unsuccessfully for governor of Arizona in 2022, is narrowly projected to lose her race against Democratic Rep. Reuben Gallego.
Gallego, who has represented a Phoenix-based House seat for nearly a decade, will succeed outgoing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.). Sinema decided not to seek reelection after switching her political affiliation from Democrat to Independent last year, as she faced significant challenges securing another term, The Hill reported.
Gallego announced his challenge to Sinema before she made it clear that she would not seek another term, putting Senate Democrats in a temporarily awkward position of potentially having to choose which Democrat to support.
The Arizona Democrat emphasized his background as the son of a single mother with family roots in Mexico and Colombia, along with his service in the Marines, The Hill reported.
His victory provides a small but significant boost for Democrats, who had a largely disappointing election cycle this year. While they successfully defended their Senate seats in battleground states like Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona, they also lost seats in Ohio, Montana, and West Virginia, and appear poised to lose in Pennsylvania as well. Additionally, they lost control of the White House, and their chances of maintaining control of the House are looking increasingly bleak.
Lake, a former local news anchor, previously ran for Arizona governor in 2022, narrowly losing to Gov. Katie Hobbs (D). She gained national attention during her gubernatorial campaign as a prominent election denier—a stance that haunted her once again during her Senate run, even as she continued to contest her 2022 loss in court.
“Lake, this cycle, maintained she would not vote for a federal ban on abortion if elected to the Senate and said abortion restrictions should be left up to the states,” the outlet noted, adding that previously, she supported a now-repealed 1864 law that banned nearly all abortions in Arizona.
At the same time, Gallego faced scrutiny during his Senate run over his record and whether his views on issues like immigration and the border had evolved. Critics pointed to past comments he made, such as calling Donald Trump’s border wall “stupid” and “dumb.”
Gallego, a former member of the House Progressive Caucus, let his membership lapse later, citing dues as the reason. Republicans aimed to nationalize the race, using ads to link Gallego to prominent Democrats like Vice President Harris and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
Meanwhile, Trump won Arizona this time around after winning the state in 2016 but losing there to Joe Biden in 2020.
“The once firmly GOP-controlled state has put into office a Democratic governor, two Democratic senators and other statewide elected officials” over the past election cycle, NBC News reported last week.
“A fast-growing Latino population and a revolt against Trump among some old-line Republicans put the once-red state into battleground territory. And Biden’s 2020 win in Arizona was just the second time in 28 years that Arizona’s electoral votes went to the Democratic presidential nominee,” the outlet added.
“Still, many of those Democratic victories have been by the slimmest of margins. Arizona was the second-closest state in the country in the 2020 presidential race, with Biden beating Trump by just 0.3 percentage points (10,457 votes),” NBC said.
In the 2024 presidential race, polling over the past few months showed Trump with a slight edge over Harris in Arizona, though typically within the margin of error. While Trump’s campaign was largely outspent and out-organized by the Harris campaign in Arizona, Republicans saw a notable surge in voter registration heading into the presidential election year.
“And the state was a good fit for the two issues at the center of Trump’s campaign: the economy and immigration,” NBC noted further.