When Kari Lake announced her bid for the U.S. Senate, I was admittedly less than pleased. For one thing, I felt she was better off continuing her efforts to clean up elections in Arizona. For some time, she dismissed the idea of running for the U.S. Senate, and I thought that was an admirable thing for her to do.
Of course, my other reason for not wanting her to run for the U.S. Senate is that polls showed that if she were to run, she’d be favored for the Republican nomination but wouldn’t be the Republican best positioned to win the election.
What’s happening in Arizona is bizarre, to say the least. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Democrat-turned-independent, has filed paperwork to seek reelection but hasn’t formally announced yet. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) has already declared and has generally been favored to win in both two-way and three-way match-up polls. The Republican candidate who performed best in those match-ups was Marty Lamb.
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Gallego has shown tremendous strength in the polls for months now, which is quite concerning for Arizona, a red-leaning battleground state, and the problem appeared to be that voters had soured on Lake because of her post-2022 election activities. Lake was even underperforming Trump, who has had a healthy lead in the state in recent polls, which suggested that her negatives with Arizonans were too high for her to be viable.
But things may not be so bleak for Kari Lake after all.
According to a new VCreek/AMG poll disclosed by Americas PAC, Lake has taken the lead in the race for the U.S. Senate in Arizona. According to the poll, Lake leads the pack with 41%, beating the leftist Ruben Gallego, who comes in with 36%, while Kyrsten Sinema comes in at a distant third with 16% backing her. Seven percent of respondents were unsure of whom they would support.
POLL: U.S. Senate (Arizona) @KariLake - 41% @RubenGallego - 35%@SenatorSinema - 16% pic.twitter.com/vJwjezsHMy
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) December 20, 2023
The most recent poll tracked by RealClearPolitics came from Noble Predictive Insights at the end of October, and it showed Gallego winning in a three-way match-up with 39%, compared to Lake's 33% and Sinema's 32%.
What has caused this turnaround for Lake? Well, when asked about the poll by Larry Kudlow on Fox Business, Lake said there are two big issues that have put her on top.
"Well, it's the border. It's the border and the economy, and, you know, basically getting back to policies that make sense and help Arizona families, so they feel secure, so ... what they're making is going further," she said.
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"And people are really concerned about the future," she continued. "They look back where they were four years ago: our border was secure, we had a great energy policy, our economy was growing, and now it's just the opposite."
"We can't sustain this number of illegal folks coming in across our border," she added. "It's an invasion. We have the largest number of people come in one day—nearly 15,000 across our southern border—and they're prepared for it to get even worse. I just talked to a mayor down on the border. He said it's showing no signs of slowing. It's getting worse every day."
In short, Kari Lake, who was behind in the polls, has likely been boosted because of Bidenomics and Biden's border crisis. After thinking for months that Kari Lake was going to lose a winnable seat for the GOP, it's safe to say that Joe Biden has made her more viable.
And I dare say he'll probably help GOP candidates in other races as well.
